


The Promise of a Thousand Stars

by Lockea



Series: A Thousand Stars (Come Back to Me) [1]
Category: DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Angst, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Bruce Wayne's A+ Parenting, Dystopia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Master/Slave, Self-Harm, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2018-11-23 07:22:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11397786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockea/pseuds/Lockea
Summary: They met only briefly, before the Revolution turned the land and the fall tore them apart. Ten years later, Richard Grayson is Gotham’s most eligible bachelor and a blooming socialite, the son of Gotham’s figurehead, Lord Wayne. Jason is the boy Richard remembers, the one who dreamed of the stars and the night and flight. It seems a miracle when he wins that once-familiar boy in a game of chance, but ten years hasn’t been kind to Jason – bitter and worn and angry, the man he’s become no longer dreams of the stars.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to this monstrosity that started when I told my sister "I need something dark and angsty to write." Her suggestion was Fire Emblem hurt/comfort but I thought "Nah bro, I need to scratch my 'let's torture Jason Todd itch'" and the need for slavefic was mighty and great.
> 
> I am such a one trick pony sometimes. But hey, at least this time I'm writing in a new fandom. Also, *waves to the DCU fandom* Hi! I'm Lockea. I don't actually go here, but ya'll write amazing fanfiction, my sort of beta aka Very Patient best friend is a DCU fan, and I'm queen of wiki diving so yeah. Here I go.
> 
> Tags, characters, and pairings will be added as the fic progresses. This is because I don't actually know what I'm doing or where this is going so I don't know which relationships will be mentioned in passing and which will actually get screen time. I would hate for, say, the Tim/Kon fans to read and be disappointed that I barely had time to mention more than in passing that hey, Tim and Kon like each other and might be sleeping together. IDK. I'm such a mess sometimes.

_Jason’s on the roof staring at the night sky when he hears the fire escape creek and light footsteps cross the space from the roof access to where he’s lying on a comforter from his room wrapped in a quilt some relative had made a long time ago._

_“What are you doing?” The overly precise words, so heavily accented they’re almost unintelligible, belong to Jason’s newest neighbor and friend. Dick’s family is circus and they got dumped in the Crime Alley Ghetto just a couple weeks ago. Most of the circus folks live in the overcrowded shelters or on the streets, but someone took pity on John and Mary Grayson and their twelve-year-old son and got them moved in with the old lady who lives a few doors down from Jay and his mom._

_“Watching the stars, stupid. What’s it look like?” Jason askes, but there’s not much heat. He actually kind of likes the weird circus brat whose English leaves a lot to be desired. Apparently his dad’s is even worse but his mom’s is passable._

_Dick doesn’t respond, just flops down on the comforter next to Jason and looks up too. “Can’t see any.” He points out. “In the countryside the sky is filled with stars so bright its almost white.”_

_Here there’s the occasional flicker of what might be an airplane. Or it might be a star. Jason imagines what Dick’s talking about, a sky so bright with stars as to be almost white, the milky way streaking across the midnight sky. “Sounds nice.” He admits before he can stop himself._

_“I’ll take you one day.” Dick says. “A thousand stars across the sky. I’ll show you.”_

_Here there’s one. Two. Jason says. “It’s a promise.”_

*~*~*

Dick is out on the town when Cat Grant corners him in a coffee shop, instead of the usual from Vicky. The press is mostly free to report on what they want and Cat is very keen on an inside scoop for the upcoming Revolutionary Ball at Wayne Manor in two weeks. Dick can’t say he’s surprised so with a wink and a smile teases her about what a stellar event Brucie has planned and how it’ll be the best Revolutionary Ball in all of the Oligarchy. The best one Gotham’s ever seen too. It’s been ten years after all, and they should mark the occasion somehow.

“After all, our lives are so much better now thanks to the Lords’ rule.” Dick finishes with a smile, taking one last sip of his coffee before a slave comes over to the table to clear away their dishes. If the slave catches Dick’s comment, she ignores it.

“Oh, yes, of course!” Cat agrees easily. “Thanks to Lord Luthor’s revolution things in Gotham have gotten so much better than they used to be – almost no crime whatsoever and the Oligarchy has the highest standard of living for the middle class out of all the industrial world. We have Lord Wayne to thank in part for that.” She winks at him as she closes her laptop and rises. “Thank you, Lord Grayson.”

“Not a problem, Ms. Grant. Any time.”

It feels a little bitter and hollow when he thinks about it. His parents died in that old world and here he is flirting with socialites and nobles across the town, playing the dutiful perfect son (but not heir, because out of the woodwork came Damian and blood is everything in this new world).

So he doesn’t think about.

The market is quiet this early in the day, but that’s precisely when Dick likes to walk it. Market Street is lined with trading houses but there’s a few open-air markets and Dick doesn’t have the mental fortitude to go in the houses today so he walks the streets looking for a familiar face. There is only one and Dick likes to think he’ll know it when he sees it. But of course, once again, he sees nothing. Although he pauses to contemplate a few slaves as if he’s looking to buy before passing on.

Nothing to see here. Nothing to think about.

His cell phone rings and he picks it up. “Hey B.”

“Dick.” Bruce greets cordially enough, but the tone of his voice denotes this is serious. “Are you walking the markets again?”

“Yeah.” Dick purposely keeps his tone from getting defensive. They’ve been fighting off and on about Dick and the markets for several years now. Bruce can’t stand them, the reminders of how he betrayed his parent’s ideals for the sake of his own life. Dick can’t stand not to walk them, the reminders of who he could have been had Bruce not saved him. “Don’t worry. I found nothing, you don’t need to worry about your perfect little home being invaded again today.”

They have slaves – it would be unusual not to and Damian is used to a much higher standard of living than Dick is, so he practically demands a staff of his own. But Cass and Steph aren’t much of a household, and beyond that there’s Alfred who is a one man wonder machine. Alfred who is free but clings to the traditions of a simpler time.

Bruce is silent on the other end. “An invitation arrived for you today. Lord Brant has graduated from university and is hosting a sort of party for Gotham’s elite youth. I would like you to go.”

Lord Edward Brant is a stick in the mud and a chauvinistic asshole. Dick can’t stand him. “Why?”

“I’ll explain while you get ready for the event.” Then he hangs up, as if Dick has already agreed to go. But of course, Dick is the dutiful son who plays the part of the well-loved Gotham Socialite, so it stands to reason that Bruce isn’t wrong. Dick is going to go.

*~*~*

It turns out that Lord Brant might be involved with the smuggling of slaves across city-state borders. Bruce needs to Dick to ascertain the validity of these rumors so he’s stuck going to the party dressed in tight black jeans and a low-slung royal blue tunic that’s practically falling off his shoulders, the sleeves billowy but gathered at his wrists, bishop style, high enough to show off a lack of cuffs. It’s the fashion right now, to dress as a slave might, but without the collar to show off ownership and for just a moment when Dick looks in the mirror he imagines a collar around his throat, the fate that could have been his.

He imagines belonging to Bruce in a bond of property, the way the others do, instead of belonging to him out of loyalty and gratitude. It’s an ugly thought. He wouldn’t have the freedom he does now, to move unseen and undetected throughout the nobility.

Lord Brant’s party is in full swing when Dick arrives, and it’s as debauched as promised. The Brant manor is full of revelers, school friends and the elite youth alike and they smile and nod or chat with Dick as he passes by. As Lord Wayne’s son, Dick has a certain amount of pull – enough of one that when he passes into a backroom where Lord Brant is drinking and smoking with his closest friends, the man rises to his feet in greeting.

“Grayson!” Edward greets as if they’re old friends. They’re not but Dick allows the words. “You’re here, now the party can truly begin.”

“Oh?” Dick laughs breathlessly, accepting a tumbler of liquor from a slave girl that slips past, her skirt too short and her crop top low enough to reveal the black collar of her status. “What have I missed?”

He takes a seat on the chair left open for him. Edward’s inner circle consists of two school friends who Dick vaguely recognizes as a Star City socialite and a Metropolis socialite, as well as three other Gotham elites. One of them is Timothy Drake, who at seventeen is the youngest one in the room and perhaps the whole party, but the Drakes are second only to the Wayne family, so it makes sense for Edward to have invited Timothy here.

“Nothing yet,” Edward responds. “In fact, I was about to let Lord Drake choose what game we were going to play. Cards or something more exotic. Although if we play cards we’ll be wagering with less conventional currency.”

“But of course, Lord Brant refuses to enlighten us as to the details of the two games.” Timothy says. He sounds so regal and imperious, especially compared to Dick who is often just charismatic, not commanding like Bruce can be even as he smiles and flirts for the cameras.

“Well, that’s unfortunate.” Dick mock pouts. “Come now, Edward. How about at least something of a hint.”

“Well, I had hoped we’d play both.” Edward answers. “But let’s just say the second game is a test of skills, and I’m rather eager to see how everyone measures up.” Edward’s two school friends chuckle behind their own tumblers of liquor, clearly already familiar with whatever game Edward has planned. Dick doesn’t like the lascivious looks they cast his way either and hopes, silently, for Timothy to choose cards instead. Whatever the currency, it’s got to better than whatever exotic game Edward has planned. Hopefully Dick can play a few rounds before excusing himself from the party early. He really has no stomach for these events.

“Well, if we’ll play both why not warm up with cards?” Timothy suggests, his tone bored as if whatever Edward has planned won’t phase him.

“All right.” Edward agrees. “Money is a little too droll for the likes of us, so I wager we raise the stakes of this game. Favors and slaves. It seems a more fitting way to celebrate not only my graduation but the upcoming tenth anniversary of the revolution.”

Dick’s stomach drops. He’ll have to wager favors, because he’s not wagering slaves in this madness. Bruce would kill him. Bruce might still actually kill him. “I see.” He replies as a slave brings over a deck of cards and they pull their chairs closer to the coffee table between them. “And what is the other game?”

“Ah, you’d spoil my fun, Grayson?” Edward asks with a mischievous grin. “Tell you what, that’ll be my first wager. Win this round and I’ll tell you what my game is. Hell, I’ll even introduce you to him. He’s quite the treasure.”

“Him?” Dick asks, but of course now he’s intrigued. Whatever it is they’re doing involves a person. This could go very, very badly very quickly.

“Ah-ah, win this round, Grayson.” Edward teases.

It takes Dick a few moments to come up with a suitable small favor to wager, but he decides on allowing one of them to accompany him to a ball held in Metropolis next month. It’s another something Bruce has him doing, playing up to the elite of the elite – all above his companions’ pay grades, except maybe Lord Drake. Timothy might already have scored an invitation himself, but he doesn’t protest the favor.

It turns out to be for naught. Timothy wins the first round and demands not only to be on Dick’s arm for the event but also to know what Edward’s game is. Edward looks distinctly put out, staring between the cards in his hand and the cards on the table frowning before he raises his hand and snaps his fingers. One of the girls waiting with drinks disappears out of the room.

“We’ll have to make sure he’s ready. If you wanted to play now, I would understand. He’s quite spectacular.”

‘He’ turns out to be a slave, of course, who follows the girl back into the room with his head bowed so that dark hair covers his face and hides his features from view. He’s maybe eighteen or nineteen if Dick had to guess, but built like a brick wall, solid cords of muscles stand in definition against pale skin lightly tanned and scarred. That’s the most striking thing about the man, besides his build shown off by the skimpy pair of shorts and black collar that are the entirety of his apparel. His back and across his chest is littered with scarring, some light and faint and near invisible in the dark, others wide and stark and fresh. He moves with grace despite his size, coming to kneel next to his master as the girl who escorted him returns to her place at the wall.

Edward reaches one hand down and grips the slave’s chin, tilting his face up. The slave’s eyes are closed and his expression serene as his face is shown to the group. He’s startlingly handsome, the kind of person Dick would have been attracted to in another life. Now, however, he’s worried as Edward opens his mouth. “This is my favorite toy, you see. He’s a masochist – makes the most beautiful sounds and loves every second of it. I had hoped to play a game we’re all rather found of – to see who can make him come untouched first using any means necessary.”

Dick swallows the rise of bile in his throat and offers a grin instead. “Kinky.” He teases, feeling the words false in his throat. “I knew you were a man of many pleasures, Lord Brant, but I had no idea this would be that kind of party.”

Edward releases the slave’s chin and the slave goes back to bowing his head and says with a smile, “All the best parties are, you know. Welcome to my den of delights, Lord Grayson. I know your father is rather a stick in the mud but you should loosen up, have some fun. See, Lord Drake gets it.”

Indeed, Timothy has a smile on his face, a sort of calculating expression as he observes the scene before him. Measured, weighing,  _playing_  with Edward and his friends. Dick doesn’t point this out. Timothy almost has the same expression on his face that Bruce gets when he’s playing up his beloved Lord Wayne persona. It’s fake, but he’s not going to point that out. He wonders if Timothy is just as disgusted with the display as he is.

“Let’s keep playing cards for now. Perhaps we can wager more interesting stakes?” Dick suggests. He’s of no mind to rape a slave tonight, and if he can delay or prevent it, he will. Even as the slave doesn’t look up, doesn’t react or shift.

It turns out Lord Brant is terrible at cards and Lord Drake is nearly an expert at reading and winning hands. He amasses quite a few favors before Lord Brant is running out of worthy trades to make. Finally, Edward folds his cards and says, “My slave.”

Timothy, of course, seems to be having fun fleecing the other nobles (Dick included) but he smiles and says, “And which slave is that? The pretty girl against the wall? The one bringing drinks? Or…” He leans forward, “The one sitting at your feet?”

This gets a reaction, a blanche, from Edward. “Sure.” He wagers. “You can have him if you win. I was getting bored of him anyway. But if I win, I want every favor wagered yet or a slave of your own, Drake.”

Timothy might possibly roll his eyes at that – it’s hard for Dick to see in the dark. “Every favor I’ve won. Fair enough.” He turns to Dick. “You in this round?”

Dick glances down at his slips of paper denoting what he’s won, which isn’t much. “My family doesn’t keep many slaves. There’s no one I would willingly wager.”

“Yes, but you have connections and favors none of the rest of us have.” Timothy points out. “An introduction to Lord Luthor. You can arrange that, can’t you?”

Fair enough, Dick supposes. Besides, what’s one more round. “All right, but I’m leaving, win or lose, after this.” Hopefully lose. He doesn’t know what to do with a slave but he can swing an introduction to Lex Luthor next time he’s in Metropolis. The man owes Bruce a favor anyway.

The others, perhaps wisely, don’t engage, leaving it to the three of them to wager their bets and lay down their hands. Aces high, and Dick has three aces and two kings.

“Well, damn.” Lord Drake laughs breathlessly. “You won the pot.”

Lord Brant looks like he’s swallowed a lemon, but at his feet Dick sees the slave glance up just slightly, just enough that he catches pale eyes in the dim lighting before the slave ducks his face once more. Dick feels just a little bit numb with realization before he covers it with a smile. “Well, I’ve been wanting a bed slave for a while now. Looks like now I’ve got one.”

Dick rises from his seat and looks again at the slave before turning his attention back to Lord Brant. He offers his hand for a shake, and Edward returns it reluctantly. “It’s been a pleasure, Lord Brant, but I’m done for the evening. Perhaps you’ll need a new slave to play your game with. Might I suggest Madam Kyle’s house on Market Street? I’ve heard good things about her stock.” He grins teasingly.

“Yes, of course. Take him. I’ll have his writs sent over in the morning.”

Dick nods and the slave rises to his feet, rocking back on his heels to stand gracefully without breaking his perfect posture. Dick was an acrobat child, or else he’d be slightly envious of that grace. He can do that too, but the slave makes it look as effortless as his mother used to, long before the fall.

In front of Brant’s manse, the air is cool enough that Dick shivers beneath the thin material of his loose shirt and feels just as bad for the slave in his near nudity. Thankfully, Dick has already texted Alfred and the butler is on his way. He arrives before the night gets so oppressive that Dick’s forced to retreat inside.

“My heavens Master Richard, what have you gotten yourself into this time?” Alfred asks the moment he steps out to get the door to the back of the Royce open.

Dick gives him a lopsided grin. “I won a game of chance.” He explains, as if that explains anything at all. More quietly so that only Alfred could hear him. “I couldn’t let this go. I’m sorry. I’ll deal with Bruce.”

Alfred sighs and gestures for Dick to climb in. The slave follows, kneeling quietly on the floor. He’s been so strangely still all night that it’s almost disturbing the amount control he seems to exert over himself. Or the paralyzing fear that keeps him grounded. Dick leans back and drops all pretenses he carried in public, patting the seat beside him. “You can sit next to me.” He offers. The floor can’t be terribly comfortable, even if the back seat stretches on forever, designed for the comfort of those riding in it. “I’m Dick. You can call me that when it’s just family around, or Master Richard in public. What’s your name?”

For a moment Dick wonders if the slave heard him. There’s silence between them. The slave doesn’t move, doesn’t shift, doesn’t speak. Dick’s about to repeat the question when Dick hears the single word that breaks the silence. The single word that changes everything.

“Jason.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were two kids who died in the revolution. Ten years later, they meet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: There is a fairly graphic depiction of self harm (cutting) in this chapter. I honestly knew when I started this story that Jason was going to be a character that struggled with his emotions and emotional repression is a huge trigger for self harm. I mean, in comics he's basically aggressive and a smart ass to handle his emotions, but he can be neither at the moment, so he's found what works for him. Anyway, If the scene worries you, skip everything past where Jason is alone in his room at Wayne Manor (the line "The moment he's alone, Jason shatters.")
> 
> It should also be noted, lest I piss off any masochists, that masochism and self harm are not at all the same thing. Self harm is anger and emotion turned inward. Masochism is pleasure from pain. They look the same on the outside but are nothing alike on the inside.

_Jason is already living in Crime Alley when they build the fences around it. He and his mom live in a rundown apartment in a squat building with a flat roof that Jason likes to lie on top of with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, watching the airplanes streak across the night sky and wishing on them like stars. When the power in Crime Alley goes on ration, he can make out the brighter stars and some satellites with his bare eyes (or high-flying planes, one of the two). Before long they round up all the homeless, the desolate, the wanderers and dump them in Crime Alley and soon enough no one can leave anymore. The checkpoints are manned with men with guns who don’t hesitate to shoot anyone who tries to get past them._

_There’s something going on. Something big and Jason doesn’t know what. But what he does know is that his mom is more blissed out than she normally is and that she doesn’t really pay any attention to him anymore. She’s always high so he’s always out in the streets, scrounging up food, standing in ration lines, lying on the rooftops. Whatever._

_He meets Dick on that rooftop, watching the stars. Dick who tells him about the circus in his broken language and pidgin English, about his family, the road, and most of all the stars that Jason so loves. The stars that promise something better than what he has, here in Crime Alley._

_It’s Dick’s friendship that keeps Jason together when his mother overdoses. She came off the heroin for a while, went through withdrawal, and overdosed when she tried to go back on. Nobody cares. Nobody but the Graysons. John and Mary take him in without a second thought, concern for a child far outweighing concern for themselves._

_Life’s not normal, but the routine soon becomes the new normal. Life passes on, and something big keeps approaching Gotham, a sleeping dragon threatening to devour the city whole._

_Then Dick disappears._

_It happens in the middle of the night and when Jason wakes up the next morning Mary Grayson is sitting at the kitchen table crying. “He ran.” She tells Jason. “He’s dead.”_

_He’s dead._

_Then the revolution comes and there’s nothing left. The bloody massacres across the country all take place near enough to the same time, three days and three nights that destroy the world. Jason remembers. Jason remembers lying on his stomach as a heavily armed man handcuffs him, staring at the blood and gray matter splattered across the floor. Mary and John are dead, a quick bullet wound to the head and they are gone and Jason is well and truly alone in this world._

*~*~*

Coming back to Gotham is almost a relief after two years in Central City with Master Brant. Before that he was in Star City and before that Metropolis, so in all it’s been almost eight years since he was first sold out of Gotham. The familiar streets of what used to be Crime Alley have become Market Street instead, but otherwise blessedly little has changed in the last ten years. Maybe it’s cleaner, brighter, better in some ways. The news talks about how great the Oligarchy is and how Lord Luthor of Metropolis and the Lords of the cities have blessed the country and taken away the poverty and crime. They haven’t taken it away, only made it disappear, as if that’s the same thing. It’s not.

He’s shown to a room in the slave’s wing and given time to unpack and prepare. Master Brant is hosting a party tonight and, among his friends, he’s the main attraction. Worse because Brant’s got two of his buddies from college who know just how to fuck him over when they really try. He hates these games.

It’s near midday when it’s time to start getting ready, and so he heads down to the kitchen and does some heavy lifting in exchange for something light to eat – he shouldn’t eat too much before the party and he knows what his stomach can and won’t handle. Still, the good, honest kind of work makes him feel a little less angry, a little more grounded. He’ll need that tonight. He’ll need every piece of his mask that he can gather around himself before the time comes.

The communal bathroom in the slave’s wing is crowded as the girls wash and gripe about their clothing, helping each other into slinky dresses with short hems and low-cut bust lines. There’s a few guys in the room too, and of course no one says anything when he walks in and strips down to start his own routine. He’ll need to be clean for tonight. One of the guys is someone he knows as his alternative – the one Master Brant plays with when he’s bored of one and exchanges for another. Still, his alternate’s not the one who can handle the heavy impact play and the knife play that their master is so fond of – he’s the one who, broken as he is, actually likes the feeling of the pain.

Because when he’s not angry he’s numb, and the pain reminds him that he’s still somewhere deep inside. That nine-year-old who died on a dingy apartment floor. That boy is still alive.

When he’s finished he heads back to his room, a towel slung around his hips. One of the other slaves must be running errands, because there’s a fresh bottle of lube and a container of make-up sealant on his vanity. His kit is already unpacked and in place. He starts with the lube. Starts with two fingers just to feel the burn of the stretch as he preps himself for his master. He has a couple of butt plugs available for preparation, but in this case, he merely grabs the smallest one and slides it in. The stretch of a cock or larger toy in him will hurt, but the pain is what he wants, so he lets it go.

 _You keep a boy around for baser desires._  One of his old masters told him once.  _A girl to please, a boy to please you._  And in his case, pleasure meant endurance. The ability to take what was dished out and beg for more.

The stranger in the mirror hates the slave that stares into the glass.

Make up is kept light. Something to line his eyes, something to even his skin, not that he needs much. He was blessed with fair, even skin that’s just enough sun-kissed naturally to look healthy instead of wane. Cursed with skin that bruises beautifully under the cane or crop, that splits open under the knife supple and giving. Sealant will keep it from running off when he sweats (or if he cries, not that that’s happened in a good four or five years now). Lastly, he dresses in tight shorts that press in and against the plug, but he ignores the feeling. It’s easy now that he’s used to the pressure, the weight of it. He sits and he waits.

All too soon it seems there’s a girl at his door. Her expression is flat. “Ready?” She asks.

He nods. Rises. Takes a deep breath until there’s nothing left but that perfect mask. The slave.

It’s easy to pretend – because he’s a good pretender. A good actor. He is King Henry V before the war. Serenity before the storm. He doesn’t look when he kneels, keeps his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to see. It’s easier that way, the less he knows about the men who want to hurt him for their own sexual gratification. He’s surprised that they aren’t going to play with him immediately but he settles back on his heels and lets himself relax into submission. He doesn’t watch, but he recognizes voices.

He realizes that there’s a young one among them, maybe a few years his junior, who is winning nearly every hand of cards and another who wins some as one by one the others back out but his master keeps betting, keeps wagering, and keeps losing. It’s monumentally stupid then when he’s goaded, almost, by the young one to wager a slave. But Master Brant agrees. And he’s the one Master Brant wages.

It can’t be that bad. He was a gift to Master Brant after all. The worst that will happen is he’ll be sent back to the markets and while he’s never been to Market Street in Gotham, he’s been on one before and they can’t be all that different from one another. His new master can’t be any worse than some of his previous ones. Really, it would be hard to top the master before Master Brant.

To his surprise, he goes to the other noble, the one Master Brant calls Grayson and he’s puzzled over that name for a good while as they played. The name. The name sounds familiar until it comes back to him. Mary and John. Dick. He remembers a name like that, long ago, but that means very little. It’s almost worse, belonging to a man with a dead family’s name, but he doesn’t let that get to him.

Doesn’t let that get to him as they wait for the car. As the old man calls his new master Richard. As his new master introduces himself as Dick.

And now he looks up through the fringe of his hair, looks up into a face that’s at once familiar and a stranger, a face that haunts his nightmares somehow more often than the faces of Mary and John or his mother, dead. Because Dick was the one he hadn’t seen die.

“Jason.” He says and begs to be forgotten. Don’t be real, this ghost before his eyes.

But Jason is real. Dick is real. He recognizes the name. Jason knows right away. Dick recognizes him.

“Do you remember me?”

The idiot asks, as if ten years haven’t passed. As if one isn’t a slave and the other is – what? A socialite of high enough standing to have a chauffeur? A socialite of high enough standing to be present among the lords of Gotham, an inner circle some of Gotham’s most exclusive youths among them.

When he’s not numb, he’s angry, and right now Jason wishes for numbness, because he very much wants to punch that asshole in the face and run as far as he can, even if it means his death. Instead he forces himself to breathe. He has to be numb now because he can’t be angry, no matter how tempting it is. He hasn’t survived ten fucking years as a slave just to be undone by a boy who died.

“No, Master.” He lies. He’s a great pretender after all.

“Oh.” And his whole demeanor changes, sinks in on himself, collapses the charismatic socialite into a man who looks far older than his early twenties. “I’m sorry, Jason. I thought – I thought you were someone else.”

He should say something coy, something pleasing such as  _“I can be whoever you want me to be.”_  But Jason doesn’t. He fights for calm instead, for that perfect serene mask he had on his face until that asshole broke it.  _What happened?_  He wants to ask those words so bad.  _You died. What happened? Why are you here?_

Instead he clenches his hand against his thigh, short nails not scratching nearly deep enough to bring in that focus that comes from pain, the acute sense of the world that he needs to ground himself.

The manor the car pulls up in front of not much later puts Lord Brant’s manse to shame. It’s got the look of an ancient house, however, one that’s existed before the Oligarchy and yet it still shocks Jason to know that old money has existed for more than ten years. He’s always belonged to the relatively newly moneyed, at least before now. The old man comes around opens the door for them to climb out and Jason ducks his head to avoid meeting the man’s eyes, because there’s something sharp there. Something that Jason doesn’t want to see in that perception of him.

Once inside the foyer, Jason’s new master sighs. “Alfred,” He directs the old man, “can you show Jason his room? I need to talk to Bruce.” He turns his attention to Jason now, studying him. “Alfred is the family butler. He’s a freeman, but you can ask him for anything you need. Cass and Steph are probably asleep by now, but they’re also available if you need help.”

Jason does not ‘need help’ so to put it and nor would he admit it even if he did. So he doesn’t say anything but keeps his head ducked as he follows Alfred up the flight of stairs to the right that leads to a wing of the mansion opposite from where his new master seems to be heading. Alfred’s silence is cool and welcome and without looking Jason can’t tell if the butler is judging him or ignoring him. It’s better that he doesn’t know. Today has been enough of a shake up and Jason just wants to take another shower and go to sleep. He can deal with the rest of his life in the morning.

Alfred leads the way to a part of the manor that must be the slave’s wing, but it’s fairly ornately furnished, with end tables and art and vases on the end tables. None of the bare whitewashed halls of every other slave’s wings he’s stayed in.  The door that Alfred eventually stops in front of is solid wood, ornate and heavy and opens into a room that’s far from plain. The walls are painted a goldenrod color that somehow manages to be more warm than nauseating, and the bed is no simple cot with plain sheets, but an actual four poster monstrosity with more than two pillows on it. It looks soft as fuck too, even in its unmade state. There’s even an open door leading to a small bathroom with a shower stall, sink, and toilet off to the side.

“I’ll bring you fresh linens and a change of clothing.” Alfred says while Jason stands dumbfounded in the doorway, positive there must be some mistake. This isn’t a slave’s room. It’s his master’s room. Has to be. He sits on the edge of the mattress and ignores the instinct to kneel when the old man returns carrying a basket of linens with what looks like a pair of pajamas on top. He sets the basket just inside the door. “Cassandra and Stephanie are in the room directly across the hall. I am to your left. If you need anything, please let me know. If not, I shall retire for the evening.”

It sounds weird, to have a freeman address him with such respect and quiet dignity, as if talking to a polite equal or better. “No, sir. I’m fine.” He manages the words but the moment the door is shut behind him that fades. The moment he’s alone, Jason shatters.

He heads straight to the bathroom and rummages around in the basket beneath the sink, finding it is stocked with a few items for both male and female occupants of the room, including a safety razor. Not his favorite thing to use but it’ll do in a pinch. Breaking the razor takes some finesse and he ends up giving himself tiny paper-like cuts on his fingers in the process but within minutes he has the broken exposed blade of the razor in hand.

He feels his breathing shallow in his chest and with the first cut comes an exhale, across his leg, nearly parallel to another scar given to him by his previous master. Or, more accurately, the one before Brant. It’s a thin scratch, blood barely welling up from the cut but it’s enough. He doesn’t need to bleed, he just needs to feel. To feel that stinging ache of pain that was denied him, the pain he’d prepared himself for. Just a few shallow cuts and then he’ll hide the razor and get undressed and take out the plug, shower and make the bed and go to sleep. Once he can breathe.

He used to wonder, when he was little, why his mom took drugs. Why she lost herself in the haze of heroin. Pain is its own drug, one that Jason was forcibly addicted to but one he can’t let go of. Pain makes the anger go away, pain makes him numb. Pain keeps him alive. He can breathe when he’s hurt.

He cuts until he can breathe once more. So he can deal with the fact that Dick Grayson is alive and here and has been for ten years, so he can deal with belonging to a ghost. Jason cuts until he can remember why he’s alive, because there’s a nine-year-old boy that died on a dingy apartment floor who shares his same name, and Jason couldn’t save him.

No one could save him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for all the kudos left on the previous chapter! And the comments too! And bookmarks! Seriously, ya'll are love.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce is a good dad, Jason continues to lie, and Babs helps Tim solve a mystery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a pain to write. I wrote every single scene twice before I was happy with it and even then I'm not sure the coherency is there in this chapter. Updates are going to slow down because I'm participating in a Big Bang for Yuri on Ice and I need to focus on that fic for a while. Also, the only reason you guys have gotten these three chapters in such a relatively short amount of time is because I had a long weekend.
> 
> I keep forgetting to mention, but the title for this fic is from a Red song that kept popping up on my playlist while I was writing the first chapter. "The Ever" by Red and "Part that's Holding On" are both kind of the theme songs for this fic.

_Dick leaps across the alleyway, running along the rooftop with Jason close behind him. They’re free like this, snaking over the crowded, narrow alleys of the ghetto, flying past the people below. There are some people on the roofs -- little cities with tents and blankets and laundry lines between the buildings. It's too crowded in the ghetto for everyone without a home to live on the streets. Still, even in the cool autumn air it feels freeing to run with Jason, dodging people and scrambling over parapets._

_They head for the edge of the ghetto, where the gate is. Where a truck has come into Crime Alley bringing food on it, their meager rations because no one can work and no one can really afford anything. Rent isn't a thing that exists anymore, and space is so limited that people have banded together. Once, people banded together to try and take the gate, but they were all shot down and killed, the explosions sounding as far away as upper Gotham._

_They get to the edge where the ration line is starting and climb down the fire escape. A woman hollers at them to be careful but Jason just grins and does a flip off the third stair. Dick beams in pride -- he was the one to show Jason how to land a front flip._

_There's extra guards around the ration line today, some richly dressed men whom Dick doesn't know but doesn't feel comfortable around. They walk up and down the line with their rifles at the ready. Dick pushes Jay behind him gently when they get closer. Jason doesn't need to be around these men. Once they get to the front of the line, Dick pushes Jason in front of him. He needs to get his food first. He has to feed his mom._

_It's while he's waiting in line that one of the guards approaches him. Dick knows better than to look them in the eye because it doesn't take much for them to shoot or hit someone. They're violent and volatile men and women, these guards. This guard, however, is much older than the other guards. He approaches Dick and says, "Hey kid, want some extra rations?"_

_Dick's not stupid, for all that his English sucks. He knows what it means when a guard asks him if he wants extra rations. Sometimes the requests are simple -- run an errand or move some boxes or help out with a minor task that needs doing. Sometimes the requests are not so simple or innocent. "Depends." Dick says, voice heavily accented._

_The guard grins. "Smart kid, knowing not to blindly agree. I just want to ask you a few questions. Nothing major, and after you'll get your rations and go."_

_Dick frowns. Nothing is ever that simple, or that cheap. "No, thank you sir."_

_Jason finishes getting his rations from the truck and Dick is waved up. He doesn't wait for dismissal from the guard, he just goes._

_It's a small memory, so inconsequential that Dick doesn't think about it again. Doesn't think about the guard. Doesn't even remember the incident, really, at least not until the night that same guard comes to take him away, the last night he'd ever see his family or Jason again._

*~*~*

It’s nearly one in the morning, but that barely means anything around here. Damian will be asleep, as will the girls. Bruce of course will be awake and sitting in his office. So Dick heads there, knocking on the door before pushing it open.

“Hey B.” He greets quietly. He’s so tired and worn out. Playing the socialite comes easily to him because, well, for the most part he’s perfectly happy and agreeable. He likes to believe the best about everyone and he makes friends so, so easily. Still, it sometimes becomes a mask in situations like this night, where he’s forced to hide his true feelings about Lord Brant and the slave he’d wanted to fuck for fun and games. Horror, disgust; anger seething and dark. He wants to go to sleep, but first he has to warn Bruce about Jason.

“Dick.” Bruce returns. Not quite warmly but with a soft enough tone that it conveys enough for Dick to get the idea. Bruce is terrible with his emotions, stunted and repressed from the ‘chin up’ attitude of the moneyed elite he was before the revolution and of course after… well… he’d never been a parent before, especially not to an angry and grieving teenager. After Damian came into their lives two years ago Bruce had struggled to make sure neither son doubted he loved them. Damian acted like that love came with conditions but Dick was sure. Bruce loved them both even if he didn’t always show it. That Dick never doubted.

It made what he was about to say easier. “I brought back a slave.”

“Dick.” This time there’s a hint of displeasure in the way Bruce said his name and Dick bites his tongue to keep from saying something he’ll regret. “Why?”

“I won him in a game of cards.” Dick replies, voice frank. He takes a seat in the chair across from Bruce, who has been staring at him intently since he’d entered Bruce’s office. “I wasn’t going to leave him there. The whole situation was messed up and he’s better off here.”

“You know he’s not, Dick.” Bruce rubs his forehead tiredly. He’s in his late thirties but some days he seems so much older. He’s careful not to let the stress show on his face when he’s playing up with Lord Wayne persona, but here, alone, the lines across his face may be faint but the soft light of the desk lamp casts them in shadow. “The girls are bad enough, but at least if anything were to happen I can trust Cass to get Stephanie to safety.”

Dick takes a deep breath. This is the reason Bruce doesn’t want him to walk the market. Firstly, he can’t stand the sight of a collar around someone’s throat, but more importantly it’s what they do, the subtle way they undermine the oligarchy. Its why Bruce sent him to Brant’s party even if Dick learned nothing. It’s why Dick went anyway.

It’s why Dick couldn’t turn away from Jason, before he even knew his name. Before he even thought he might know him.

“His name is Jason.” Dick says.

“Like the boy you’re looking for?” Bruce asks.

Dick nods. “I think he is the boy I’m looking for but I’m not sure. He didn’t recognize me. Have I really changed that much?”

Bruce contemplates this for a moment. “It’s been ten years. I don’t think it’s that surprising that you don’t recognize him nor him you.”

What hangs unspoken between them is something neither of them has breathed word of. It’s been nearly thirty years since Bruce’s parents were killed for threatening to reveal what Luthor’s father had planned for the country, the first stirrings of the oligarchy. It’s been ten since Dick’s parents were killed, casualties of his own survival. What hangs unspoken is the fearful question – would Bruce’s parents recognize who their son has become? Would Dick’s?

Would Jason recognize who Dick has become?

“Go to bed, Dick.” Bruce decides a long moment later. “We will deal with Jason in the morning. If he is who you’re looking for, we’ll go from there.”

“Thank you.” Dick replies sincerely. He rises gracefully to his feet. “Good night, B.”

“Good night, Dick.”

*~*~*

Dick’s alarm goes off early and with a groan of protest he hits snooze and returns to sleep. Ten minutes later a second alarm wakes him and with a mumbled curse he rises, showers, and gets dressed. It’s only when he’s halfway to the kitchen for breakfast that Dick remembers – Jason. Shit. Dick had meant to be up earlier so he could check on the slave and make sure he was all right. After the upset the night before Dick’s sure that Jason has to be having some issues.

So when he opens the door to the kitchen and sees Jason laughing at Steph’s antics while Cass and Alfred look on in amusement, it throws him for a loop. The four of them are eating breakfast – a full country spread that includes some delicious looking fresh baked muffins. Steph is saying, “—and then Cass kicked him and since then we’ve been inseparable.”

Jason snorts in amusement and takes another bite of his own breakfast, smiling at Steph and looking more at ease than Dick would have thought possible given how tense he was last night, given the assumptions Dick had made about Jason based solely on what he’d gleaned from last night’s conversation with him and the events of the party.

The moment is ruined when Alfred glances up and sees Dick in the doorway to the kitchen. “Good morning, Master Dick.”

Jason stills, like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. He takes his cues from the others and doesn’t rise but his shoulders tense and back straightens as he ducks his head, glancing at Dick through lowered eyelashes.

“Good morning everyone.” Dick responds, pushing a smile to his face as he steps fully into the kitchen. “Bruce and Damian aren’t up yet?”

“Young Master Damian is at a sleepover with a school friend and won’t be home until this afternoon. Master Bruce has not made an appearance yet this morning. I was going to go check on him after I assigned chores for the day.” Alfred explains.

Dick nods. He approaches the table and notices the reactions of Steph and Cass, who are watching Jason tense up and almost seem to quit breathing. He grabs a muffin and backs away, watching as Jason relaxes just a fraction. All trace of the earlier joy is gone from the room. “Don’t assign Jason any chores this morning. I need to speak to him.”

Alfred nods, “Of course, Master Dick.”

Dick can tell when he’s not wanted somewhere, and the atmosphere in the kitchen has faded into awkward silence, so he takes his muffin and heads for the door. Part of him hopes Jason will call to him, ask him to stay and show some sign that he’s the boy Dick spent ten years looking for.

There’s only silence until the door to the kitchen swings shut behind him.

*~*~*

Sometime around midmorning Alfred knocks on the door to Dick’s room. Jason is standing behind Alfred dressed in the plain black uniform of the house. “As requested,” Alfred says, “Jason is free for the entire day today but should you finish early the girls are readying the ballroom for the gala in two weeks and could use the extra help.”

Edict delivered, Alfred leaves them, pausing only to glance over at Jason. As he has been since Dick arrived in the manor ten years ago, Alfred is unreadable, but Dick thinks the look he shoots Jason is pitying. Dick gets the feeling that, pitiable as Jason is, the younger man would likely not appreciate that. If Jason were the same boy that Dick remembered, he definitely would not appreciate that. Dick's Jason had been street tough and street smart and didn't take well to anyone looking down on him. He had been all prickly edges.

"Come in." Dick holds open the door and ushers Jason into the room. Jason steps inside before kneeling to the side of the door, his posture perfect in his pose.

Dick sighs, not unfamiliar with the habits of slaves but not so comfortable with text book displays of obedience. The slaves in this house are... odd, to put it simply. Sure, Steph knows how to keep her mouth shut but she rarely does so in private and Cass is technically obedient but with a sort of non-verbal defiance that leads to interesting confrontations where Damian is involved.

Dick takes a seat on the bed, legs crossed on the duvet as he truly takes in Jason. Tall -- almost as tall as Bruce with black hair run through with a streak of silver-white, premature graying despite Jason being a late teenager or early twenties at best. He's well-built and muscular, of course, and with his scars hidden behind clothing he looks like any young passerby on the streets. The collar needs to be replaced, the thin steel ring is stamped with Lord Brant's house crest. That'll need to be replaced with the Wayne's crest instead. His face is free of scarring and make-up both, revealing shadows under pale blue-green eyes. The weight of the world hangs on his shoulders.

Dick's not sure tact is his strong point, so he'll have to rely on his charisma for this conversation, but he has to know. He has to confirm -- is this really his Jason? But if Jason doesn't remember him, he doesn't want to just blurt out that he used to live in Crime Alley. That's a sealed record and technically no one is supposed to know Dick ever left that place in anything other than a body bag.

"I thought we could talk this morning." He says with an easy smile, leaning back on his hands to show he means Jason no harm and is not a threat to the slave. "How did you sleep last night?"

"Fine, Master." Jason answers, voice soft. His head is bowed and his lips barely move with the words.

"That's good!" Dick beams, even as part of him doubts the truth. Shadows like that under Jason eyes are not the sign of a good night's sleep. Still, he doesn't want to press too hard. "No problems this morning either? You got enough to eat at breakfast?"

He asks a few more questions along that vein, receiving only two word replies each time and Jason keeps his perfect serenity the whole time, the quiet submissive posture of a well-trained slave even as he volunteers nothing. Finally, Dick asks, "So, Jason, where were you born?"

"Gotham, Master." Jason says and Dick's heart soars in his chest. Gotham, where  _his_  Jason was born. Even if this Jason doesn't remember Dick, it doesn't matter. Dick's found him. He  _must_  have.

"I was born in Gotham too." Dick tells Jason, wondering if he can jog the boy's memories. "My parents were in the circus and they stopped in Gotham for a show. I was born in my parent's trailer and I lived there until I was adopted by Lord Wayne."

It's a true story, though Dick glosses over the part about being taken from the circus and rounded up and shoved into Crime Alley. He leaves out the six months they lived there, where Dick and Jason became friends almost immediately, until the day the oligarchy’s soldiers took him away.

Jason doesn't respond, not even shifting, and Dick sighs internally. Nothing. "So, do you have any questions for me?"

Jason is silent for a long moment but Dick waits, the picture of patience, before Jason says, "No Master. I don't want to impose on your time."

"You're not, and please, you know you don't have to call me master when we're alone. There's no reason to stand on formality around me."

"Yes, Ma -- sir." Jason corrects at the last moment. Then he moves, shifting just slightly. "May I ask, sir, what my role is?"

"Role?" Dick asks. He's not unfamiliar with the term, the unofficial way slaves are classified. Cass and Steph are housekeepers, and Jason is – was – a body slave. They have different responsibilities because of it. "Whatever you want. Technically you're my new body slave but you don't have to do anything you don't want to. You might have to play the part in public -- you know, small gatherings like last night --" Then he realizes what he's said, what he's insinuated, and promptly back pedals. "But I won't touch you and I won't let anyone touch you. You'd just be acting the part."

"I wouldn't mind." Jason says, still so very quiet. "If you touched me, sir. It's what I'm good for."

Dick's heart breaks at the words and he doesn't know how to respond. "Jason..." He trails off. "You are worth far more than that."

"Of course, sir." Jason replies in a tone of voice that tells Dick he's acquiescing not because he's convinced, but because he doesn't want to continue this conversation

Dick dismisses him after that, and when he's alone again after Jason has closed the door behind him, Dick buries his head in his hands and tries to consider where to go from here.

*~*~*

Despite appearance otherwise, Tim hadn't intended to throw the card game. Tim was a very good card counter but he wasn't a miracle worker and if there was anyone who had sheer dumb luck enough to beat Tim when it mattered the most, it was Richard Grayson. How else did an orphan appearing out of nowhere just prior to the revolution end up being Gotham's most beloved Lord, even more popular than his foster father, Lord Wayne?

Tim contemplates his failure through the next day, planning his next move. He still has his favors from Dick Grayson and knows that the young lord will follow through on them. An introduction to Lord Luthor in a month's time will have to suffice. He does need to do some snooping around LexCorp as is, which is perhaps even more important than finding out what's going on with some small time run-of-the-mill slave trafficking. The only problem with what Brant's doing, of course, is that Tim has his suspicions the ring may be related to the dead bodies of slaves washing up on the banks of the Gotham river. Gotham City PD has no idea where the bodies are coming from and frankly no motivation to investigate. The former mob lords are now actual lords in this oligarchy, although they're still small fish compared to families like the Drakes and the Waynes. Still, even with Tim's influence as Lord Drake, he hasn't been able to get the mystery solved -- there's money and power in this business and even a single Lord can't compete.

So Tim does what he can on his own, whittling down sources and following leads to find out where they go. Last night's party, despite the events of it, have not given Tim high hopes that Brant is actually involved in the trafficking operation, or that if he is he's oblivious to it.

Tim does love a good mystery, but not at the expense of innocent lives. Besides, he couldn't save every slave, but maybe if he'd been luckier he could have saved that slave.

Tim's on his third cup of coffee since waking up half past noon and contemplating his next move when Babs calls. Barbara Gordon is the police commissioner's daughter and a skilled computer scientist who does freelance work for different companies in Gotham and surrounding cities. Tim had met her when she did penetration testing on Drake Industries' firewall a few years ago and since then they’ve kept in contact. Sometimes she even gave him her father's notes. She was also, as luck would have it, Dick Grayson's on again –  off again girlfriend.

"Did you ever consider that maybe I could have just given you the information you wanted instead of you gallivanting all over the elite's parties to get it?" Babs asks by way of greeting when Tim picks up the phone.

"Good morning, Babs." Tim greets. "I would have asked but my way was more fun. Saw your ex last night. He's looking fine."

"Shut up Tim. I don't want to hear it." He can almost hear Babs roll her eyes in response. "Anyway, to answer your question -- which you should have asked me in the first place -- there's a couple of large transactions on Lord Edward Brant’s bank account. Money from his father, apparently, as an allowance. So I checked the senior Lord William Brant's account and he's got money coming in from off shore accounts. Those were pretty easy to hack too, by the way, they should really hire better cyber security experts, oh wait no they shouldn't because then I'd be out of a job. Anyway, sure enough the transactions going into Brant's offshore account come from Gotham -- one Lord Oswald Cobblepot. Sound like someone you'd know?"

Well, shit. Tim doesn't curse -- he's too bred and born to use foul language unless he's very much sleep deprived. As it is, he shouldn't be surprised Lord Cobblepot is involved. That man practically runs Gotham's slave trade, especially the illegal side of it. The legal side is mostly Falcone -- the two have a sort of symbiotic relationship.

"So the chances of the slave from last night knowing anything?"

"Basically nil." Babs is way too cheerful this early in the day. Tim needs more coffee before he can deal with this. "From what I understand, the slave that Dick ended up with -- and I am going to kill him for this -- was a gift from Senior to Junior to keep him from asking too many questions. Grade wise, Lord Brant's a pretty sharp cookie, but I guess if you have all the pretty toys you don't notice what's happening just under your nose. My bet is the house of cards comes falling down now that you've removed the joker at the base."

"Thanks Babs." Tim responds.

"No problem, Tim. Hey, I know you're probably kicking yourself in the butt right about now, but don't worry about it. Dick's good people."

"I know that." Tim doesn't snap at her. He knows Dick Grayson is a good person, and that's the only reason he has any hope for the slave that Dick won last night, but slavery is slavery, whether the manacles are made of gold or steel, and Tim could have saved someone from that fate.

He hangs up and heads to his computer to make notes. In two weeks, the Wayne manor will be filled with revelers celebrating the revolution. Tim will be there, as will Cobblepot. This may be Tim's chance to finally close the case for good.

He's looking forward to it. There's already too much blood on his hands from inaction, and Tim can't stand to risk anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my sister had a theory that Tim threw the card game so I figured I should answer that question. Looks like Tim and Bruce are after the same thing. Maybe they should team up? And of course with Babs on their side the oligarchy wouldn't stand a chance.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason reaches breaking point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bleah. You know what sucks? Spending a whole month in the hospital because your brain decided to try to kill you. Anyway, I do apologize that it's been MONTHS since I last updated. Between work and traveling and getting ready for AnimeUSA (come see one of my panels!), I haven't had time to really write. However, NaNo has given me an excuse to work on this.
> 
> You'll notice that there's been some minor revisions since the posting of the last chapter. However, since doing these revisions a few months ago I haven't reread previous chapters, so there may be a few plot holes. My apologies. I'll fix those hopefully in December or January. Kill one plot hole and two more appear. T_T

_"From today forward, this is your life. You don't speak, you don't move, you don't eat, or shit, or fucking sneeze without permission. I own you snot nosed brats and it's my job to make you fit for service to your new masters. Right now you're worthless, the dregs of society, but I will make you worthy."_

_There's a mean looking man holding a cattle prod that arcs with electricity and hurts like a sonuva whenever it's pressed against the skin of the children standing in one ragged line. Behind the man are armed men like the ones who guarded the entrances to Crime Alley. It's been two days since the massacre and every time Jason closes his eyes, he sees John and Mary, lifeless eyes. He's grateful his mother wasn't alive to be shot by the men with the guns. He's glad she's not alive to see him now. Yesterday, or what Jason thinks is yesterday, he'd yelled at a guard for shoving one of the younger kids. They'd dragged him out of line and beat him. Today he's sore and doesn't want another beating, but he'll take one if they go after one of the kids. Better him than one of them. He's older, he's street tough, he can take it._

_Several of the kids in this batch are crying. Yesterday, the men had come through and separated everyone into groups of twenty or so and now they were here in this cavernous warehouse that used to belong to the crime lords of Gotham, but now it’s where they are. Slaves, they’ve been told, because they were burdens on society before and now they won’t be. It’s better this way._

_It’s not better this way. This way sucks._

_“Now, you lot are lucky. You’ve been chosen to be trained as housekeepers. You’ll go to the noble houses. Eight hours of work a day, a bed to sleep in at night, sounds like a fucking dream, right?” The man with the cattle prod continues. “Get on my bad side, though, and I’ll make sure you go to the industrial companies. Small brats like you would be good for getting in and out of tight spaces, dangerous work, might even lose a limb. Wouldn’t want that would you?” He stops in front of a girl who is sniffling, dangerously close to crying. “Isn’t that right?” He asks her and when she doesn’t respond backhands her. With a cry of pain, she falls to the floor._

_“Hey, asshole!” Jason’s in motion even before he knows what he’s doing, going after the man. “Leave her alone!”_

_The man turns and grins, but it’s not a nice expression, it’s as mean as he is. “A little brat like you gonna stop me?” He asks._

_Jason swings a punch wildly, only to have the man catch it in his hand, that cattle prod digging into the skin of his neck. With a scream as searing lightening courses through his veins, Jason pulls back, nearly falling but only just managing to stay on his feet. His body aches from yesterday’s bruises and now the prod. He’s shaking, weak as a newborn, and hates himself for it, but it’s better him than the girl that’s sitting up now, her eyes wide as one hand presses against her cheek._

_It’s always better when its him, because he couldn’t save his mom. He couldn’t save Dick, and he couldn’t save Dick’s parents._

_The man’s grin is twisted and sadistic, he regards Jason struggling to stand with a sort of glee. “Brats like you aren’t worth the time of day, but I’ll tell you what, boy, you get back in line right now and I’ll pretend this didn’t happen.”_

_“Or what?” Jason asks. “You’ll sell me to the factories? That doesn’t scare me.” It doesn’t. Jason’s always known he was going to die young. It’s the fate of the kids from Crime Alley. Besides, who does he have to live for besides himself? And he won’t go without a fight. He won’t go meekly to this fate._

_“Oh no, kid. Get back in line now, this is your last chance.”_

_Jason doesn’t move._

_The man turns away from him and gestures for two of his thug enforcers to come forward. They grab Jason and he can’t fight back. So this is it. Better than just bowing his head and accepting his fate._

_The man says, “Put him with the special group. He’s pretty enough and there’s buyers out there who’ll like their body slaves young and trainable.” To Jason he says, “Could have saved yourself, boy, but you didn’t. When you’re on your back getting fucked by every john in the city, just remember that; you could have saved yourself.”_

*~*~*

It's insidious, these nightmares, rarely do they come. More often he remembers cold dead eyes, or the night Dick disappeared. Blood dripping on ragged carpet. He rarely dreams about training, those first few days or the ones that came after, of learning how to hold himself, how to act, how to speak, how to endure. Still, they leave him shaking when he wakes, and only cutting can make the shaking stop. He's finishing up -- washing thin trails of blood off his arms and legs before dressing in the uniform of the house, when Steph knocks on his door. He's not surprised to see the girl standing there, smiling at him. So damn happy it's almost nauseating, but she's young -- younger than Jason -- and so she's been spared the life that Jason leads.

"Good morning, Jay. You sleep okay last night?" Steph asks and Jason resists the urge to glare at her. "Okay, gotcha. Grumpy cat is grumpy this morning."

"Grumpy cat?" Jason rumbles, but he's curious, not angry, as he follows her out and down the hall towards the staircase that leads to the kitchen. 

"Yeah, you know. That cat on the internet that looks mad all the time?" Steph asks over her shoulder. At Jason's blank look she adds, "You did have internet as a kid, didn't you?" As a matter of fact, he did not. His mom had never been able to afford more than basic cable TV.

"No."

Steph startles a bit. "Oh, sorry. If it makes you feel any better, Cass doesn't know about grumpy cat either."

It doesn't. Jason doesn't say anything.

He does like this household. Cass and Steph are funny and have such good energy when they're bouncing off each other. Cass is the straight man to Steph's energetic personality, one which brightens any room she enters. When they're alone, the three of them, especially as they have been in the ball room these last few days, Jason finds it easy to let go and smile more. The heavy oppressive anger and the numbness both ease back a bit, leaving something that might not be so bitter behind. 

But that lack of a bitter taste is so short lived it's like a fleeting dream. All it takes is one mention of Dick Grayson before the anger and the storm of emotions behind that anger come back full force. Jason can't help it. He's angry at the man, what for remains unclear, but when he thinks about Dick the perfect calm disappears.

The simple truth is that Dick left him. Left him behind in his ghetto when he ran. He didn't even tell Jason he was going -- just up and disappeared one night and supposedly died for it. 

Still, when he doesn't consider Dick -- when Steph and Cass and Alfred don't mention him and that man doesn't come near him -- it's easy enough to forget where he is and how he got here.

It's the third day in the manor before Jason meets the other nobles in the household. Namely, he runs into Lord Wayne one his way through the manor to the open foyer where he's been asked to take care of a couple of different things. He's busy running an arm of decorations from the attic down to Alfred and the girls who are on the other side of the manor when he accidentally bumps into Lord Wayne.

It's an immediate reaction, to go to ground when he's made a mistake, and Jason is on his knees before he realizes what's happened. The older man -- dark haired, handsome, reclusive but charismatic according to the news -- pauses above Jason.

For a long moment the silence stretches between them, enough for Jason to tense and bite back a remark about hurrying the fuck up because the carpet beneath his knees had done little to absorb the shock to his knees and Jason may only be nineteen but he feels far to fucking old to be doing this shit at the slightest provocation.

"Up." Lord Wayne commands, voice cool. Jason rises, arms still full of the decorations from the attic, but he keeps his head bent to hide from the lord's gaze, which feels hot on the top of his head. "You are Jason, yes? The one my son won in a card game."

"Yes my lord." It seems obvious, he should know this. Jason bites back a sharper retort, tells himself to stay calm, and breathes it out, the way he was taught by another slave to do. Breathing works to lessen the anger in the same way it does the pain, letting clarity in, even if it's just for a single brief moment. 

Lord Wayne nods. "You need not stand on such formality when it is only a few of us in the household. I was not a lord before the revolution."

_But you are now, you murderer._

The words come unbidden into Jason's mind and he flinches, visibly, from the vehemence behind them. He can't stay here. He needs to be dismissed quickly because the mask is breaking. The calm is not controlled by breathing in light of such flippancy.  _You arrogant asshole._

He can't be that lucky, however, because a moment later there's another in the hall. The young brat that Steph despises and Cass can only marginally handle being around. Lord Wayne's illegitimate child, but the legal heir because in the face of it all, the oligarchy prizes blood above all else. 

"Father?" The voice is haughty even as it questions, "What are you doing? You promised to go horseback riding with me today." 

"So I did." Lord Wayne sounds amused as he steps past Jason and Jason finds his hands curling around the box a little harder than before. It grates on him, how easily he's been dismissed, but at the same time he needs to leave  _now_  before things spin out of hand. So he takes the break offered and starts down the hall, only for the brat to call after him.

"And just where do you think you're going slave? You have not been dismissed."

Jason shuddered, body going tense in response.  _Don't react, don't react, don't react._

"My apologies, my lord. I hadn't intended to disobey."

"Damian." Lord Wayne said. "Go, Jason, Alfred and the girls need your help."

He couldn't escape fast enough, forcing himself to keep his movements slow as he walked down the hall and turned the corner. Still, he was shaking, hands clenched around the box hard enough to bend the cardboard. He couldn't go to the ballroom like this. He would only take his anger out on the girls and they didn't deserve that, but his emotions were like a sandstorm, sweeping over him, containing him, threatening to break him. 

Jason ducked into a small alcove in the hallway and set the box down. He wrapped his hands around his forearms, just above the opposite wrist, and dug short nails into his skin as hard as he could. The scratching left little angry welts and burned to the touch, but didn't break skin. Still, the pain was centering. He'd done it. He'd made it through his first meeting with the great lord of Gotham without punching the murderous bastard on his smug mouth. The deaths of everyone during the revolution could be laid solely at Lord Wayne's feet.

His fingers dug into his skin hard enough to bruise, not that Jason cared, it was centering still. Someone, an older slave, had told him once that self harm was a form of anger. Jason, as a kid, had a more explosive temper, one that he was quick to direct onto people around him. Slaves weren't allowed to do that and Jason had been up on the post more times than he could count because of that anger. It was that same slave who'd taught him how to cut, who'd suggested it. He could remember what she'd said.

_"If my therapist were alive, she'd kill me for doing this, but we have no other coping skills."_  At eleven, Jason didn't know what a coping skill or a therapist was, but he knew that the slide of the blade across his skin hurt, but that it felt good. It felt like crying, except that Jason was a big kid and big kids didn't cry. 

Even now, with so many different options, he needed the pain to let out the anger inside him, to let him go. To be calm and submissive and perfect because the pain he could control, or the pain he could prepare himself for, was better than the consequences of fighting, of displaying his anger. He pulled his sleeves back down over his arms to hide the welts and forming bruises, picked up the box, and headed back for the ballroom. He could do this. Steph would have some smartass remark when he got back and he could let go, relax, breathe. 

It seemed quite cruel, then, that Dick was in the ballroom talking to Steph when Jason stepped inside.

*~*~*

Dick gave Jason a few days to himself to acclimate, for all that he wanted to tail after him until he knew, absolutely, positively, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Jason didn't actually remember him. In all, he didn't do that both because it would be rude and pressuring on the young slave and because he didn't have the time for it. Contrary to what most people believed about the Wayne family, both Bruce and Dick were up to their necks in the day to day affairs of the city. Some of that would eventually be passed along to Damian, but that would have to wait until the day when Damian's solution to everything didn't end in tyranny. They were already tyrants in the oligarchy -- they didn't need to brutally enforce that order.

So Dick spent the first three days Jason was in the manner attending to business at Wayne Enterprises while Bruce traveled to Metropolis for a meeting of the Council of Lords. It was the day after Bruce got back that Dick had decided he'd waited long enough. He waited until after a lunch meeting with the Lords of Gotham before he headed to the ballroom in search of Jason. The slave wasn't there, but Steph and Cass were. 

"He'll be back any minute now." Steph replied. Over in a corner, Alfred was on the phone with a caterer while the girls were up on ladders hanging garlands from the wall. "Alfred sent him to get some decorations from last year's gala -- more garlands, I think -- out of the attic. Mostly because he was standing here like a doofus looking super agitated. He's high strung, that one."

Dick snorted. Yeah, sure. So far he'd had two whole conversations with Jason but it didn't even take that much to see how high strung the slave was. Calm submission hid a hurricane behind his eyes. Dick wasn't --- okay, well he was sometimes kind of stupid, but not that stupid. Besides, he remembered the Jason who was passionate and wore his heart on his sleeve. That Jason that Dick had loved. "I know. You guys have been making him feel welcome, right?" 

Steph grinned at him. "Sure am, mini-boss. Actually got him to laugh like twice."

"Very quietly." Cass chimed in. Steph glared at her, but it lacked heat. Dick laughed.

"You guys don't know how much I appreciate that." Dick said. 

"Hey, we've all been there, mini-boss." Steph replied. "I still remember when I came here. I was so scared of everything. And I was a housemaid. I can't imagine how tough it's been for him. You know he's been a body slave since the beginning? I didn't think they took kids that young."

Dick's stomach twisted. No. He hadn't know that. He'd thought Jason had been older, a teenager at least. The general consensus was that body slaves should be at least fourteen, the youngest age of consent in the country before the fall. 

Jason had been what, nine? When the world fell, he'd been little more than a child. To think anyone would take a child like Jason and think that was... it was inconceivable to Dick.

The sound of a startled crash caused all four occupants of the room to glance towards the entrance, where Jason was standing, expression flashing very briefly in rage before that placid mask of his slide back over his face. He knelt and picked up the box just as Dick was asking dumbly, "Are you all right?"

For whatever reason, that set the man off. "Does it look like I'm fucking all right?" 

Dick startled backwards from where he'd instinctively began to cross the room towards Jason. Now he paused, hand held out tentatively to the younger man. Realization dawned on the slave's face, the horror clear as day there before he dropped to his knees -- another loud crack against the marble floors of the ballroom. "I'm sorry master, please forgive me."

A part of Dick's heart broke at the words, for all that there was still that undertone of anger in his voice. Dick pushed a smile to his face, breezily channeling his charming Lord Grayson persona. "Nothing to apologize for. We all have bad days."

Jason tensed even further at the words, hands clenched into bloodless fists. Dick crossed the room and knelt beside him, cleaning up the decorations that had fallen out of the box Jason was carrying. "I can do that, master." Jason gritted out behind obviously clenched teeth as he forced his hands to relax and reached for a garland of gold crystals that glittered beneath the ballroom lights.

Dick shook his head. "You're stressed out. Let me help." He made the mistake of reaching out to take the garland from Jason's hand, only for the slave to recoil, falling backwards as he exhaled harshly.

"Don't!" The words came strangled in his throat as Jason gracelessly tried to escape from Dick's grasp. Dick yanked his hand back as though burned. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. What had happened to get Jason so worked up? What had changed? What created this reaction. Jason had been calm, submissive (Dick hesitated, but  _broken_  was an accurate word). This Jason, for all that he actually displayed human emotions, still wasn't anything like the Jason that Dick had known. 

Jason scrambled to his feet, putting as much space between him and Dick as possible. The look on his face stricken and pale. He turned and before Dick could speak, darted out of the ballroom. Dick made to go after him.

"Wait!" Cassandra called, stopping Dick in his tracks. He turned back to face the girls. Alfred had hung up the phone and was watching him, face characteristically unreadable. "Don't go after him."

"Why not?" Dick snapped. He hadn't intended to, but the words came out in the stress of everything that had happened in the last thirty seconds. 

Cass, thankfully, was unfazed by Dick's snappish behavior, but she'd said what she wanted to say, and quietly demurred to Steph, who said. "He's not going to react well if you go after him right now. Leave him alone. He's already not reacting well as is."

Dick was torn. He wanted to go after Jason, to soothe his fears and find the source of his anger. He almost did, but Alfred stepped up to him. "Wait, sir. I know you want to help, but the best you can help is by staying here. Miss Stephanie," He called. The teenage slave perked up. "Would you mind going to find Mr Jason and see if he would like to retire until dinner. Perhaps some alone time will have him feeling more like himself."

"Sure thing!" She took off down the hall.

Dick felt less than useless as Stephanie went to chase down Jason. He should be the one comforting the man, not Stephanie. Jason was the boy from Dick's childhood, the boy Dick had failed to save, at least until now.

His chest felt hollow; there was so much he didn't know about Jason, so much he wanted to know, and so much he probably never would. That sense of failure, acute in his heart. He wanted to know what he could possibly do to save the man his childhood friend had become.

He didn't know if there was anything he could do, if he couldn't get Jason to stop flinching away from him, stop him from running. He could wish, but if wishes were fishes he'd be richer than Bruce. But they weren't so he wasn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the kudos and comments! It really means a lot to me to see you guys reading and responding to my work.
> 
> If you're in the Mid-Atlantic region and planning to attend AnimeUSA, consider popping into a panel of mine. I'll be running two, "Electronics for Props and Cosplay" which is about making next level interactive cosplays and props using microcontrollers and sensors. The other is "How to Write the Perfect Fanfiction" which is a tongue in cheek data analysis of AO3 that discusses which tropes people are most likely to read and what the perfect length for a chapter is, all in search of the mythical beast -- the perfect fanfiction.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason has a bit of a meltdown, a noble's work never ends, and Jason gets a gift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate when stories get away from me. I mean, its usually a more enjoyable story in the long run, but it's a pain to wrangle fics that seem to go every which way. Like, originally this was going to go in a very different direction, but I kind of like where it's heading now.
> 
> Kiddos, this is what happens when you don't plot your fanfics -- they grow rabid and run off into the distance.

_It's the middle of the night and Jason's asleep on the couch in their apartment. Dick, still so young and yet so old, sits beside his mother as she and his father talk in low voices. A few guards had accompanied a worker from the city to clean out Jason's old apartment and already a new family has moved in. Jason is homeless, technically, but he's only nine. He's too young to take care of himself, no matter what he thinks. Thankfully, he doesn't have to._

_"Of course we'll take him." His mother whispers in their native language, a creole of French, Spanish, and Roma._

_"Yes," His father says. "It's the only thing we can do."_

_It's a kindness that, when Jason wakes, drives the younger boy to tears, silent as they are though they fall in a steady stream down his face. "Thank you."_

Thank you.

*~*~*

Steph's not stupid, even if sometimes she wonders if people think she is. People seem to have that impression about slaves. Steph was six when the world fell, her mom killed right in front of her. As if that wasn't scarring enough, she'd endured abuse at the hands of her masters, violence in the name of discipline. It was a life where survival skills and emotional intelligence were both equally important, and it was those two skills she used to hunt down Jason and talk to him. He hadn't gone far, but he had left the manner. The wind outside was bitterly cold, a front had moved in just last night and while the day was clear and bright and sparkling with last night's rain, autumn had well and truly set in. Jason was dressed in the long black pullover and slacks of the house, hands tucked into his pockets and head ducked against the cold. 

"Hey!" Stephanie yelled after Jason. "Where are you going?"

"Nowhere." Jason hollered over his shoulders. "I just need away for a few minutes."

Steph darted across the lawn to catch up with him, striding abreast. "I hope you aren't thinking about leaving the property. The boss-man's pretty lenient but if you get caught running away... well."

Jason growled at her. "I don't need you to tell me what I already know!"

Steph threw up her hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I give. Sorry for pushing." She wasn't. In fact, she intended to keep pushing. "But, Jay, you can't freak out like that, especially over nothing. What if Damian had seen or something? The demon brat would not have let that go easily."

"Well he didn't. You think I don't know this? I used to be better but one look at  _him_ and I --"

He cut off abruptly.

Steph wanted to press, wanted to pry, but she didn't. The words throbbed like a wound between them, raw and broken. She wasn't stupid; she knew what he meant. Dick reminded Jason of someone from his past. Someone who'd probably hurt him. Maybe even the same sick pervert who looked at a nine/ten year old and decided that was something he wanted to possess. Steph didn't blame Jason. She'd be angry too. Hell, no one had ever touched her like that (amazingly) but she still had former masters on her hit list who she'd happily put a knife through if given the chance. 

"Jason." She said, voice careful and calm to avoid a pitying tone. Jason wasn't the kind of person who wanted or reacted well to pity. So Steph didn't want Jason to think that about her. "You can talk to me. I won't judge you. I won't tell anyone."

"No." Jason replied, stubborn asshole that he was. Steph didn't respond. She couldn't force him to talk to her. "I just want to be left alone for a while. It's easier when I'm hurting, you know, to be calm and submissive. To be a good slave. But he hasn't touched me. No one's touched me for three days and today I just --"

Steph felt sick to her stomach. This was so far beyond her. "Jason..."

"Don't." Jason warned her. "Don't pity me."

"I'm not. I don't. But I don't get it. I'd have thought it'd be the opposite. For once no one's hurting you."

Jason laughed, a short bark of it tinged with bitterness. "I can feel it right now, bubbling inside me, that rage that landed me here in the first place. The rage at the world, and the injustice the lords brought with them."

Steph said, "What rage?"

"The one where if I had the ability I'd murder everyone in my way and then myself." There, he'd said it. Jason was unbalanced, mentally unstable and Steph should have been alarmed. But she wasn't. Because, in a way, she understood that urge.

"Even me?" She asked. "Even Cass?"

"If you got in my way." Jason replied. "That's all I want right now, to kick that sick son-of-a-bitch in the balls for leaving me and murder fucking Lord Wayne for causing the massacre. I'd take the demon brat out too because he's just as bad."

"And Dick?" Steph asked. "What would you do to the mini-boss?"

Jason startled and Steph stared at him like he'd grown an extra head. "That asshole too."

"You really would, even though he saved you?"

"Saved me?" Another laugh. Now Jason was beginning to sound slightly unhinged. "Damn it, Steph, you don't honestly believe that, do you? That any of them saved any of us. You are Cass -- you just don't remember freedom that well or you'd be angry too."

Steph bristled at that. "They murdered my mom right in front of me!" She snapped at him. "I do hate them. I hate Lord Lex Luthor for starting the massacres, for arranging the army. I hate the council of lords for supporting him, but you don't understand what's going on Jason. There's so much we haven't told you about Lord Wayne and Lord Grayson and even about the demon brat. Haven't you wondered why, until you got here, Cass and I were the only slaves in the manor?"

It was enough of a change in topic for Jason to pause in his tirade. "No."

"Because if people knew what we were doing all of us would be killed." She said. "Even you, even though you don't know anything. Jason, you don't know what's going on. I'm not saying what you're feeling isn't valid but it's based on only part of the story. You don't know everything."

"So tell me." Jason snapped.

Steph froze. Lord Wayne was going to kill her if she told Jason anything before they knew he could be trusted. But... he seemed to hate the oligarchy with so much passion. He seemed genuine in his desire to see the world burn. Maybe he'd believe in the world that Lord Wayne was trying to create. A world more like the old one, but less broken.

"I -- I can't. Lord Grayson should really be the one to tell you." Steph admitted.

Jason wasn't happy about that. Steph didn't need emotional intelligence to know that he wanted to snap at her. Instead he turned away and stormed off over to a tree, an old oak that had apparently predated even Alfred's arrival in the manor. With a shout of rage, he punched the tree. "Dammit!"

"Jason?!" Steph cried, partially shocked and horrified. "What the hell?"

Jason drew back his fist and punched the tree again, shaking loose a few leaves but otherwise leaving not a dent in the wood, not a mark to show, except on his fist where the bark was scraping his knuckles raw. He did it a third time before finally he pulled away, knuckles scratched bloody and sank to his knees, face buried against his bruised hand. Steph stepped over to him. Really, she should have left him alone, but something in her said that he didn't want to be alone.  That he shouldn't be alone.

"Hey." She spoke softly. "I don't know what to say. I'm not very good at heart to hearts, you know, but I do know this -- I'm not blind. It's not because I don't remember that night they killed my mom. It's not like I don't remember every time a master or mistress struck me with a belt because I did something wrong. I was never a child. I remember how much I was afraid of Lord Wayne when he first bought me. I remember being terrified because I was fourteen and finally, finally old enough to be trained as a body slave. I didn't want that. Who does?"

Jason was still as Steph approached, slowly like she was approaching a spooked animal she didn't want to fear her. But it was really more that in Jason's volatile mood he could strike out at her blindly. 

"I know." Jason said, voice cracking slightly at the end. "I'm sorry I'm not -- I can't --" She waited patiently as Jason finally said, "I don't want to be like this -- angry all the time, hurting all the time. I don't trust lords. There hasn't been a single one that hasn't hurt me before."

"Not here." Steph said. "Not Lord Grayson."

Jason's laugh was bitter. "Too late, Steph. He already has."

*~*~*

He didn't tell Stephanie -- he didn't know enough about the situation to feel comfortable with telling her -- but Steph was patient and smart enough to leave him the hell alone about it. She told him that Alfred was giving Jason the afternoon off. The lack of a punishment sent Jason's brain reeling as he headed up to the servant's wing and his room. He washed the blood off his knuckles and hissed at the sting of cold water against raw skin. Damn it! He couldn't believe he'd been so weak in front of everyone.

He couldn't believe no one had punished him for it. A slip like that would have meant at least a beating.

Jason curled into a ball under the coverlet, drowning himself in the suffocating heat of a too soft mattress and too thick cover. He tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come, instead he tossed and turned and fought internally.

God damn Richard Grayson. The rage was so strong he couldn't even look the noble in the face without wanting to punch him. The worst part was Jason didn't really know why he was so angry at the noble. Was it because he was a noble? Was it because he wasn't dead like he was supposed to be? What was it about Richard fucking Grayson that made Jason so angry at him?

Was it because Dick looked at Jason and saw a ghost from the past, a ghost that died on a dingy apartment floor. Did Dick really expect Jason to be the same boy he remembered, the scrappy kid who ran across the rooftops, who watched airplanes like they were stars in the midnight sky?

Jason tossed again, flipping down the blanket to let cool air into the too-hot space his body heat had created. His scrapped knuckle knocked against the headboard, a hiss escaping Jason's mouth from the pain of contact. The bleeding had stopped -- barely scratches, really, but the bruises would be there for a while.

"Dammit." He cursed again, immediately tossing back onto his other side. What did Steph mean when she said it wasn't what he thought. What wasn't what he thought? Yeah, this household was weird. Lesser nobles had fleets of slaves. Last he heard the going price of a house slave was around two thousand, while body slaves could be as cheap as ten thousand. So there was no reason for Lord Wayne to have so few. No reason whatsoever...

So why didn't he have more?

Jason flipped over again and stared at the clock on the bedside table. Mid afternoon. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. 

Why didn't Lord Wayne have any slaves beyond Steph and Cass -- Steph who was an impulse buy on Wayne's part and Cass who had been with Wayne for  _years_  and for a long time had been the sole slave in the house. She'd told him herself. No other slaves, so that wasn't what had happened?

The thoughts kept him awake, circling between his anger towards Dick, his confusion towards Steph's cryptic words, and finally anger at himself for not understanding what the hell was going on here. He was so stupid. He knew he was. Usually he didn't care because he was smart enough to know how not to get himself killed, but now it bothered him. The obvious answer right in front of him that he  _just couldn't see._

He crawled out of bed when Cass knocked at his door, what seemed like only an hour or two later but according to his clock was closer to dinner time. "Come." She told Jason, "I want to show you something."

She led him through the halls of the manor down to a small room on the first floor, one that was overflowing with books lining the wall on ornate mahogany bookshelves. There was a small sitting area in the middle, with a couch and two chairs, and a bay window overlooked the side of the manor with cushions for curling up in the window. There was nothing else in the room, no one waiting, no obvious need for a pair of slaves to be present in this room. Jason stepped in as Cass closed the door behind him. 

"Cass?" Jason asked, questioningly, looking at the teenager for guidance. Cass just smiled back at him.

"You told Steph and I you used to read when you were little. All the time, you read books." 

Yeah, he had. Yesterday morning during a conversation at breakfast. Alfred had mentioned the manor had a library, a non-sequitor as far as Jason was concerned because it wasn't like he was going to be allowed to use it. Now they were standing in that library, alone, and for a brief second he wondered if Cass had broken some unspoken rule to bring him here.

Cass gestured at the bookshelf. "Go, read. No one comes in here most days. It just gathers dust. I'll come get you for dinner."

Jason was stunned speechless. Cass turned to leave. "Wait." Jason called after her. "Won't you get in trouble for this?"

Cass shook her head. "No. You can come here anytime, you know. To get away." She ducked out the door, letting it close behind her with a quiet click.

Jason wasted no time heading for the nearest bookshelf. The shelf was mostly classics.  _Treasure Island_ ,  _Huckleberry Finn_ ,  _Alice in Wonderland,_   _The Wizard of Oz_. He moved to the next shelf.  _The Complete Works of William Shakespeare_. He grabbed it and flipped it open. His mom had had a copy of  _Romeo and Juliet_  when he was growing up. She'd tuck him into bed reading about Romeo and Juliet's doomed love for one another. His favorite character had been Mercutio, who to a seven year old had seemed like the coolest person, even if he was slain by Tybalt. He flipped to the play and started reading. 

He'd made it to the Juliet's nurses monologue when Cass knocked on the door, giving him enough time to snap the book closed and place it back on the shelf before she came in. "Dinner."

"Thanks, Cass." Jason said, but he meant more than just the call to food. It was also the gift of getting some time to himself to read. Even if it wasn't much. Jason couldn't remember the last time he'd had the chance to just be by himself and read whatever he felt like. Not since before the fall.

Cass just smiled back at him, her wordless response speaking volumes.

*~*~*

Work never seemed to stop for Dick. He was always in something or other. Tonight it was a correspondence with Timothy Drake. In four days Dick was supposed to head for Metropolis for a gala to celebrate the beginning of the Revolution Week, where the festivities would last all the way up until the actual night of the revolution. The most important galas would be held during the Three Days of the Fall, when the massacres had wiped out the old world and began the new one. The gala in Metropolis would be well attended. Bruce and Damian were going as well, and Dick had agreed to take Tim as a sort of date, his plus one for the event.

The arrangements were easy to make and he was finishing up his business, preparing to hang up on Tim when the other, younger noble stopped him. "Wait, Lord Grayson, I have a final request."

"Yes, Lord Drake?" Dick asked, all easy smiles even at the inconvenience.

"That slave you received from Lord Brant; how well is he settling in?"

Dick's smile remained forced, in order to keep his tone cheerful and relaxed on the phone. "Fine. He's every bit as good as Lord Brant promised." His stomach twisted at the words. "Why, are you jealous you didn't win?"

Timothy Drake laughed softly on the other end. "Very much so. I had hoped to buy him from you, if you were interested. I'd make it worth your time."

Dick nearly hung up the phone then and there. Instead he paused and considered the polite response. "I'm afraid I wouldn't want to part with him, since he is quite the treasure."

More than that, really, but it was dangerous to talk about the past and Jason's connection to Dick's own. Because Jason was the boy Dick remembered; he was sure of it.

"Well, that's disappointing. Do keep me in mind if you ever do tire of him." Tim replied. "I'll see you Friday."

"Yes, of course."

Dick sighed in relief the moment the phone was set down. Three days, because they'd be travelling up to Metropolis on Friday and staying the weekend, and then the festivities would begin. The anniversary fell on a Saturday this year, the day the Wayne Manor would be open for its own gala. The day that, if everything went according to plan, the dark knight would reveal himself to the world.

Dick had a headache just thinking about it. Investigating the illegal trafficking ring in Gotham was their current concern. Finding it before more slaves turned up dead was priority one. Let the others handle the bigger picture items; Dick was going to work small. Let Bruce and Oliver and Clark and Diana concern themselves with bringing down Lex's Oligarchy. While they did that, people would die. Slaves would die. Dick wasn't going to sit back and watch it happen as if they didn't matter.

People had treated slaves like they didn't matter for ten years now. No longer. Dick was going to save them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I'm a little ahead on this (I finished the next chapter this afternoon), I thought I'd go ahead and share a small snippet from the next chapter down here.
> 
> _While they drank, Dick sent a quick message to Alfred letting the butler know he'd be heading home later than planned and would call when he needed a ride, so that when they finished drinking and the slave came to clear their table, Dick wheeled Babs out onto the street and they started talking._
> 
> _"I hacked into the GCPD files again." Babs said by way of introduction to the topic. "Two more bodies since Friday. Whoever's dealing in these illegal slaves is either getting bolder or getting desperate."_
> 
> _"How did you know I was looking into that?" Dick asked, startled. Babs turned and glared at him over her shoulder. "Sorry. Nothing's a secret to the Oracle."_
> 
> _"Damn straight." Babs replied. "I've also got more news. You're not the only one looking into this."_
> 
> _"I hope not. The police should be investigating too, right?"_
> 
> _Babs rolled her eyes. "You are so dense, Grayson. Of course the police are investigating, but so is Lord Drake's son."_
> 
> _"Timothy Drake?" Dick asked dumbly._
> 
> _"Is there another son in the Drake family? Yes, Tim. He and I have been working together. I get the info, he deduces what it means. We need someone who can take action however."_
> 
> _"And you want that person to be me?"_
> 
> _"No, I want that person to be the dark knight."_


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The big reveal you've all been waiting for.
> 
> Well, one of them, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for your notes and your patience with these chapters. I had an epiphany while working on chapter eight that... actually... it's supposed to be early spring. I think I'm going to swap the chapters so its in the fall. I'm just... epic fail. NaNo eats your brain. My apologies for the inconsistencies. I'll fix it when I do the revision.

_Their world is a tiny bubble of the Crime Alley Ghetto. It's a world with endless mysteries and nooks and crannies to explore. It's a world where the sky is so far away and yet the stars, especially on nights when they ration the power, glitter above them. Little lights that will someday guide them home. Dick loves watching the night sky with Jason. He loves when Jason brings one of his battered books from his meager collection and reads aloud to Dick, whose reading skill is even worse than his English, at least in English it is. He can read in French and Spanish, but not English._

_Tonight he's got a new book, one they've been working on together for a few days now. It's about a girl who is from an advanced space faring civilization who lands on a planet with a medieval culture being plagued by a dragon. She becomes a beautiful enchantress to help the people of the nearby village. It's part fairy tale, part science fiction, and Dick's captivated by the thought of a world beyond their tiny bubble._

_Jason reads until his words slur and he can barely keep his eyes open, and that's when Dick and him descend down to the apartment they share and the room in it, with it's tiny bed they snuggle up in together, backs touching as they face away. It's because Dick's breathe stinks, Jason always complains, but Dick knows its really because Jason wants his own space, has always craved his privacy. He's been generous enough to share the roof with Dick, but sleeping he wants that space all to himself. And Dick respects that._

_Still, he's not tired even after Jason is snoring softly beside him, so Dick gets up and heads to the living room where his parents are still awake. They're used to keeping late hours and later mornings, so it's no surprise to see them cuddled up on the couch, whispering about the future. Speculating. They speak their native language so that Jason doesn't hear, because Jason is so young, too young, to worry about much beyond getting rations for the family._

_Dick, however, is considered old enough to hear the conversations his parents are having. Tonight, however, they fall silent the moment Dick steps into the living room. With a forced smile, Mary says, "Good evening, little bird, can't sleep?"_

_Dick shakes his head. He's not stupid; he knows his parents are hiding something from him. "What's going on."_

_Mary's smile is so tight her lips are almost bloodless. Dick's only seen her like that a couple of times. The last time was when they were rounded up and brought here. She stands up and John follows her, crossing the room to take Dick's face in her too-thin hands. They're going with less food to make sure Jason and Dick eat enough and it's starting to show. Her gray-blue eyes drink in every feature on Dick's face. "Oh, my little robin, I love you so very much."_

_"I know Mom." Dick replied. He wants to ask what's going on. Doesn't._

_John says, "You're going to all right."_

_It's a cryptic remark, just as there is a knock on the door. John moves to answer it but Mary continues to cup Dick's face. "I love you, I love you." She whispers again and again._

_John says, "They're here." And opens the door. Two guards enter, the ones who protect the main gate and the ration trucks. They have their rifles slung across their backs._

_"Is he ready?" The first guard says. John nods to them._

_"Wait." Dick says. "Wait, Mom, Dad, what's going on here?"_

_"They're going to take you somewhere where you'll be safe." John says. "We love you."_

_The second guard says, "And the other boy?"_

_"Fast asleep." Mary says, because her English is stronger._

_"You remember what you tell him in the morning?"_

_"Yes." Mary replies. She turns back to her son. "Go with them. Don't fight. You're going to be safe." Then she kisses his forehead and lets go._

_The guards escort Dick out of that apartment. He turns and looks back at his parents, looks back for Jason who doesn't emerge. He knows, even then he knows, that he will never see the three of them again._

_*~*~*_

There was so much to get in the next couple of days that Dick didn't have time to be worried about Jason, although he was nonetheless. Jason's erratic behavior in the ballroom doesn't escape Dick's attention, but with so much else going on he doesn't actually get around to seeing Jason again for a few more days. Wayne Enterprises had work that needed to be done and Bruce was so busy travelling between the different major cities for meetings of both the illicit and official kind that if he wasn't on a plane or in a meeting, he was sleeping. Dick knew there was a lot going on and took on the added responsibilities with the ease of practice.

He was sitting in a coffee shop -- coincidentally the same one that Cat Grant had cornered him in less than a week ago, after a meeting with the WE board of directors, when he sees a sight for sore eyes wheel her way into the coffee shop and up to his table. "Babs." He greets with a grin. "You're out of your nest."

It wasn't that Barbara Gordon was a recluse -- the opposite, in fact, but ever since the car accident that landed her in the wheelchair, the woman had been less likely to be seen in public. Her father was the police commissioner for Gotham, a post that had once been an elected position but was now appointed by the Lords of the City. As such, their whirlwind romance had been something of a spectacle for the newspapers and a the subject of gossip magazines across the city. Their break-up -- public and fiery like Babs herself was -- had been more for show than because they'd fallen out of love. Babs had always known that Dick was hunting a ghost and as such had reacted in kind.

Nowadays, Babs was the foremost computer programmer and cyber-security analyst in the city, a job that meant she could park out in her own apartment and not have to worry about people gawking at the girl in the wheelchair. People didn't care that Babs was paraplegic when she delivered the best damn securities across Gotham and the eastern seaboard. 

"I wouldn't have to be out of my nest if you just picked up your phone you lughead." Babs replied, but it was affectionate. "I've got news for you."

Knowing Babs, this would be important and more than just a social call. Dick sat up straighter in his seat. "Let me buy you a coffee first and then we can talk."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Grayson." Babs replied.

Dick grinned in response. He waved the slave clearing tables over and politely requested two drinks, warm for the autumn air. She bowed and ducked away to do as ordered, their drinks coming back in less than five minutes. 

"Wow. I forgot how nice it was to be in a Lord's company. Good service all the time." Babs said, with a quiet thanks to the girl who returned with their drinks. She was around Dick's age; would have been one of the older ones to survive the massacres, but she was clean and looked well fed, her uniform neat and crisp. This was a good coffee shop. Most used slaves in the city, unless they were tiny stands run by a single person, but Dick liked this shop both for its convenience and service and because he had a feeling the slaves were generally better treated.

They drank in relative silence, making small talk between sips. Dick asked about Babs' work and Babs asked how preparations for the gala were going and overall they both ignored the pressing issue of whatever had caused Babs to hunt Dick down in the first place. 

While they drank, Dick sent a quick message to Alfred letting the butler know he'd be heading home later than planned and would call when he needed a ride, so that when they finished drinking and the slave came to clear their table, Dick wheeled Babs out onto the street and they started talking.

"I hacked into the GCPD files again." Babs said by way of introduction to the topic. "Two more bodies since Friday. Whoever's dealing in these illegal slaves is either getting bolder or getting desperate."

"How did you know I was looking into that?" Dick asked, startled. Babs turned and glared at him over her shoulder. "Sorry. Nothing's a secret to the Oracle."

"Damn straight." Babs replied. "I've also got more news. You're not the only one looking into this."

"I hope not. The police should be investigating too, right?"

Babs rolled her eyes. "You are so dense, Grayson. Of course the police are investigating, but so is Lord Drake's son."

"Timothy Drake?" Dick asked dumbly.

"Is there another son in the Drake family? Yes, Tim. He and I have been working together. I get the info, he deduces what it means. We need someone who can take action however."

"And you want that person to be me?"

"No, I want that person to be the dark knight."

Dick stilled. No one was supposed to know about that. Not yet anyway. Babs sighed. "You idiot. Your father's not so great a hacker that he can outsmart me. You're all going to get yourselves killed if you start by going after Lex."

"Babs..." Dick was speechless, which was a surprise. He was normally the one who always landed on his feet, always the one who could charm his way out of any situation. "This is dangerous stuff. You're right. I can't let you get involved with us."

"Then you'll get yourself killed even faster." Babs replied simply. "You idiots think you can go it alone. Like any of us are truly happy with the way things are right now. The nobles excepted, the commoners all live in fear of being next on the chopping block, so to speak. What's to keep the three classes from becoming two?"

"I know." Dick replied. "Babs, this is treasonous stuff. They won't stop at just killing us if we're found out. Lex will make an example of us before the whole country."

"All the more reason to have allies. The belief that only you alone can take down the Oligarchy is stupid and self centered. Dick, come on. Let Tim and I help you. I mean, I'm going to help you whether you like it or not, so just let us both in."

"All right! Just let me talk to Bruce first, okay?" Dick acquiesced. "We'll have way less problems if we have him on our side first, especially with the others."

"Ah yes, you're team of other superheroes."

"There's nothing super about us, Babs. We just want to do the right thing." Dick laughed, but his response was serious.

"Well, the right thing would be to create a symbol that people can rally behind. The dark knight and your code name Justice League might be it. That makes you all pretty super."

Dick grinned. The situation was serious. Babs wanted to get involved, wanted to bring another lord in on it. The same lord who'd been insistent on buying Jason from him. That led to another realization. "Lord Drake doesn't know, does he?"

"You mean Tim? No, he doesn't know yet. As far as he knows, he and I are working alone."

Dick felt relieved. Maybe Tim only wanted Jason for a similar reason that Dick was keeping Jason -- a desire to protect and help what slaves they could. Even if that slave was a miracle, a ghost, from Dick's own past.

"All right." Dick said. "I'll talk to Bruce."

*~*~*

Jason made it two more days before he saw Dick again. Overall, he considered himself pretty lucky he'd avoided the man for this long. Still, it had to happen in the worst place possible.

At dinner the night after his blow up in the ballroom, no one said anything and dinner passed in much the same manner it normally did, with Steph and Cass and Alfred trying to keep the conversation lighthearted and fairly mindless. Steph gripped about how climbing up and down ladders all day was beginning to kill her back and Alfred spoke about all the arrangements that had yet to be made. Jason kept his mouth shut, waiting tense for the other shoe to drop, for a reprimand from Alfred at the very least. Instead, as the meal wound down and the slaves cleared the table while Alfred prepared to serve the main family their meal, Alfred laid his hand gently on Jason's shoulder and told him he could use the library anytime it wasn't occupied and he didn't have chores. He also gave Jason permission to take one book at a time from the library.

It was a gift no one else had given Jason since the fall. He sneaked back into the library after evening chores and grabbed the book he'd been reading earlier. That night he didn't sleep as he poured through all or  _Romeo and Juliet_  and  _Midsummer Night's Dream_. He was napping, set up against the headboard bent over  _Twelfth Night_ when Cass knocked on the door to his room. It was only as he was putting away the book and changing clothes that Jason realized -- this was the first night since arriving in the manor that he hadn't taken blade to wrist or body. It didn't feel like a victory, however, as he chalked it up to having such a rough day yesterday. His knuckles still stung anyway.

By lunch Jason was dying for sleep. This wasn't the first time he'd stayed up all night, but in the past he'd had the ability to sleep in late to recuperate. He'd known it was dumb to stay up all night but the joy of having something to read -- and finding that even though his Shakespearean English wasn't very good anymore he still could understand at least fifty percent of the play -- it was too much to pass up.

Alfred noticed when Jason set his head down on the table during lunch and sent him up to sleep, cautioning him to be responsible with his privileges. Jason didn't care. He napped, read, and napped again, finishing off  _Twelfth Night_  before he headed downstairs for dinner. 

The next day after lunch Alfred gave the three slaves an afternoon rest period. It was the first one since Jason had arrived in the manor, but it came as a surprise. There were no laws saying that slaves were allowed to have free time, so free time was something of a novelty for Jason. The day was sunny and almost warm so Cass and Steph immediately shrugged on jackets and went out to play in the leaves, the teenagers acting more like small children. Jason sat at the kitchen table, unsure of what to do with himself.

"Is there something amiss?" Alfred asked as he walked past where Jason was sitting.

Jason shook his head. "Just don't know what to do with myself."

"Ah, yes, the old dilemma of finding all your required tasks have been completed. The limbo of waiting for new tasks. I know it well. Perhaps you could join the girls outside. They seem to be having fun and I'm sure they'd welcome you into the fold."

Jason glanced out the kitchen window where he could see Cass and Stephanie throwing leaves at each other. Cass tackled Steph and knocked her on her back, the two pressed close to each other in clear intimacy. "I'd hate to intrude."

In truth, in the last few days, displays of affection and intimacy had begun to twist his stomach. This was the longest he'd ever gone without sex, coming up on a week now, and his hand in the showers or in the early hours of the morning was less about pleasure and more about keeping with a habit. He couldn't have even begun to explain the very visceral reaction the thought of sex had on him.

In the end, Jason decided to retreat to his room and read more.  _The Tempest_ was calling him. It was there, of course, in that place that had become like a sanctuary to him, that Dick found him.

Jason hadn't thought anything about a knock on his door. "Come in!" He called, expecting one of the girls. It was getting close to dinner, but Jason had lost track of the time. Instead, Dick opened the door. Jason startled, closed his book, and slide over to the edge of the bed so that he was facing Dick. "Yes, Master?" Jason said, fighting to keep his hackles from rising.

"Are you feeling any better?" The idiot noble asked. Jason wanted to punch him.

"Yes, Master. I'm fine."

Dick nodded. Guess he couldn't see through Jason's lie. Which was good because Jason was feeling calmer than he had the other day. On the tipping point to violent, but not there just yet. Depended how long this conversation lasted. "Good, I'm glad. I had something I wanted to talk to you about and with us leaving tomorrow morning for Metropolis, I figured now would be a good time to talk before the Revolutionary Gala.

"Of course, Master."   _Go away._ Jason kept his face as placid and serene as possible. This was it. This was the conversation he dreaded. Well, one of two anyway. The first and scarier possibility was that this was when Dick revealed that he knew exactly who Jason was. 

The second, less terrifying option, was that Dick didn't know, didn't care, and was about to order Jason to his bed. At least that would be familiar. And anyway, why should Dick care about him? He left him. Left his parents to die in the massacres.

Dick looked tense, leaning against the door frame, arms folded over his chest. Jason feared the worst. Instead, Dick said, "There's something I haven't told you about this house, Jason." A long pause, a deep breath. "Jason, we're against the Oligarchy."

It.... wasn't what Jason was expecting. "Master?"

Dick ran his fingers nervously through his hair, standing back up straight. "The Wayne family has always opposed the Oligarchy. They murdered Bruce's parents because of it and threatened Bruce's life when he didn't comply. When that didn't work any more, they threatened my life instead, and now they have both Damian and I and the girls and Alfred. So I need you to know, Jason. It's not safe to be here. We're trying to bring down the Oligarchy and bring back Democracy."

Jason's whole world tilted on it's axis. He felt light headed with the knowledge. This was what Steph had been talking about the other day. This is what was really happening here. 

"Why tell me this?" Jason asked, too caught up in his confusion and his disorientation to remember proper honorifics. "What if I were to turn against you, report you?"

"You wouldn't." And Dick sounded so sure of himself. "But we had to wait and see. I wouldn't have even said anything except that things have been set in motion. Events that required me to change my plans. I need you to make a choice, Jason."

"What choice?"

"Stay here or be sold."

Jason's breathe caught in his throat. "You want to sell me to the markets?" 

"What? No! Dammit. That is what I said. No, I'd sell you to Timothy Drake, the young noble that almost won you last week. He's got connections to get you out of the country, up over the border. Go with him and you can leave the coming war behind. Or stay here and help us."

It was tempting, put that way. Go to Canada. Screw the Oligarchy. Screw everyone else. He'd just look out for himself. But even as a kid he'd never been good at stepping aside. It was how he'd ended up a body slave in the first place. Jason closed his eyes and exhaled. "I'll stay."

Dick's face lit up in a brilliant smile. "Thank you Jason. Thank you so much." 

God he was such an idiot. "How are you even planning to defeat the Oligarchy? The lords and the commoners love it and the slaves -- most of them are kids Steph and Cass's age."

"We have a plan." Dick assured easily. "But Jason, now that you know there's something else you have to know.... something I need to know about you."

And here it was.

"When I was twelve, I lived with my family in the circus." Dick began.

"You told me this." Jason interrupted.  _Don't say it. Don't say it._

"I know. I didn't tell you the whole story. My family was rounded up and placed in the Crime Alley ghetto." Dick continued, either not noticing or not caring about the stricken expression Jason knew was on his face. "One night, guards came to the apartment we were living in. They took me away and gave me to Bruce as.... insurance... because they knew Bruce wouldn't risk the life of a kid. But they took me away from my best friend." A pause. "His name was Jason."

Dick looked straight at Jason then, and Jason wanted to scream at him. "I need to know." Dick said. "Please, tell me. Jason."

"I --" Jason's throat closed up on him. He bit back a sharp sting of emotion only to feel his eyes heat and prickle. "You left me."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"No!" Jason shouted. "No, you don't get to apologize. You left everyone. You've been here the whole time, living in the lap of luxury and I was a slave. You left me!"

"I never stopped looking for you!" Dick hollered back, but he sounded desperate to Jason's anger. "I looked every chance I got. Jason, fate's brought you to me. I love you."

Jason froze.

"No." He said, voice suddenly cool as the midnight air. "Don't say that. I don't love you. I hate you! I can't stand the sight of you. Go away and leave me alone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter:
> 
> "So what, you want me to play the part of the body slave? I am one." Jason replied.
> 
> "Are you sure, Jason? We can find some other way." Steph said gently. 
> 
> Jason rolled his eyes. "Why is everyone so intent on second guessing me? I've been a body slave for ten years. You know what that means? It means people tell me things they think no one should know. They tell me secrets because they want someone to know and if that someone's a slave? Well, it's not like I matter anyway. People tell slaves things they wouldn't dare breathe to a noble. You want information on this slave trafficking ring? I can get it."
> 
> "How?" Steph asked.
> 
> Jason hoped Stephanie wasn't being obtuse on purpose. "Isn't it obvious? People share body slaves all the time. Loan me to someone who has information and I'll get it."
> 
> The silence was so thick between them Jason could have sworn he would hear a pin drop. "Absolutely not." Alfred declared, as if that was the end of the conversation.
> 
> Jason said, "I don't care. You said so yourself. This is much bigger than just any one of us. You want to save those slaves? Use me!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "After the massacres, the only ones left to fight back are the children."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter is long because it was originally two chapters that were both short. I combined them together at the last minute to give you the mega chapter. Mainly because not a whole lot happens in this chapter....  
> Oops.

_Jason goes to auction for the first time on the anniversary of the revolution. It's been a whole year since the bloody midnight when nearly every adult living in the ghettos across the country was murdered in cold blood, the children left behind enslaved and sold in monthly auctions on the streets of those former ghettos-turned-auction-buildings. Once Crime Alley was cleaned out and after two weeks in the warehouse sleeping in close, cramped cages huddled together for warmth, the newly christened Market Street became Jason's home once more. What was once the storefront of a grocery has become a showroom for the body slaves as they come available, and the apartments upstairs are now cells and training rooms. This new Oligarchy is nothing, if not efficient._

_The first slaves are sold three months after the revolution, but Jason is marked recalcitrant early on and slated for further training. The smart ones go first -- the ones who know to bend before they break. Jason's too stubborn and full of anger and pride to bend, so they break him first._

_He's ten when he's led up to the auction block. The audience seems to collectively reel away in horror when they see him and he knows they're murmuring among one another._ Too young, too young.  _Because fifteen is plenty old enough where ten is not, as if the fact that they're both still children, even if one is closer to an adult, doesn't matter._

_He goes for a surprising amount, but perhaps that's because his taskmasters had the foresight to market him in a closed bidding, one where his buyer keeps his anonymity. When Jason meets her after the show, he's somewhat surprised -- he expected a dirty old man, a pervert, to buy him. Not a middle aged woman with a warm round face and matronly demeanor._

_For a brief moment, Jason feels like he can breathe again, when she takes him gently by the hand and introduces herself -- Tiffany Albelke. She's a mother of two and wife to a business executive at Drake Industries. She smiles at him and Jason, for once, let's himself be calm. She kind of reminds him of his mom._

_At least at first. At least on the surface._

 

*~*~*

The silence fell between them, heavy as a knife through air thick with tension. Dick's expression was stricken and for a moment Jason felt sick to his stomach. The moment was brief however; he squashed it down in favor of the hurt and anger he felt. Lashing out felt good. 

"All right." Dick said, voice shaking slightly. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Jason. I'll go. Just remember, you don't have to stay if you don't want to. No one is going to force you to do anything anymore."

"Shut up." Jason growled. "You stupid asshole. You think an apology will fix what's been broken? How arrogant can you be? I'll stay because this is my country too. I won't run and hide like a coward."

"No one thinks you're a coward." Dick interjected softly.

"I said,  _shut up!_ " 

Dick's mouth snapped shut. Jason hadn't realized that sometime during the argument that he'd slide off the bed and onto his feet, hands clenched at his side. He stalked up to Dick, who stumbled back a step in response. Now that Jason wasn't bowing his head, he was actually a few inches taller than the older man, and far broader in the shoulders. He could use his strength to intimidate, for once, in a way he'd never been able to before. 

But something in Dick's expression stopped him. Maybe it was the way blue-gray eyes met his, the way Dick was shaking as though terrified of Jason but not moving away from him. Jason froze and glanced away. "Go the fuck away, Dick. I don't want to talk to you right now." His voice sounded calmer, defeated as he was by his own anger. Suddenly antagonizing Dick wasn't so appealing, but Jason didn't quite know why. Maybe because it made him just as bad as every single master ever. 

Dick nodded slowly, turning away from Jason. "I really am sorry, Jason. I wish I could have saved you too."

He shut the door behind him.

Alone in his room, Jason's anger faded. He didn't need Dick's pity. He didn't need saving. Not anymore. 

 _It's too late to save you anyway_ , a voice in the back of Jason's mind whispered. Not when he was already broken. Her expected the anger to feel good, but it didn't. Instead he felt dirty and unclean, in need of a shower despite the nearness to dinner time. Jason headed for the bathroom.

It was routine by now, rote memory, that led him to grab the broken razor from its hiding place. He turned on the water in the shower to as hot as it would go waiting for the steam to fill the air. Once it was hot, he climbed in, letting the scalding water slide over him, stinging his knuckles and the cuts across his arms and legs, the little scratches that lay hidden beneath the long sleeves of the house uniform. The water eased the slide of the blade as he brought it down on his skin, scratching at an unmarked area near his shoulder. The blood slide slowly down his shoulder, a thin trickle turned pink and washed away quickly by the scalding water. 

Jason exhaled.

It was a long time before the heat and the pain brought the world back into focus, but when it did, Jason felt calmer than he had in several days. He was as calm as he'd been the night he was given to Dick, before everything went to hell again.

He dried off with neat efficiency and dressed, the feeling of soft cotton sliding over scratches caused him to hiss through gritted teeth, the relief having faded with the motion of cutting, leaving behind the soreness, and the scars.

It was easy to pretend like the argument with Dick had never happened. Jason headed down for dinner and despite the looks from Steph and Cass, no one made any mention of Dick or the conversation, or even of what was really going on in this family.

In fact, dinner went so much like it had the previous days that it made Jason sick to his stomach. How could everyone sit here and pretend like they weren't all involved in a conspiracy to bring down the Oligarchy?

Finally, when they were clearing the table, Steph broke the calm facade. "Dick told you today, didn't he?" She asked, as they cleared the table.

"Yeah." Jason said. "I'm going to help."

Steph smiled at him, bright as the sun. "We all help where we can. Even Alfred, right?"

The old man glanced up at Steph with a gentle smile from where he was pouring over more work for the gala. "Right, Miss Stephanie. Mister Jason, it will be up to you to decide where you want to fit in with our plans, but if I may suggest, we could use a little more help on the subterfuge front."

"Subterfuge?" Jason asked.

"Yeah." Steph supplied. "That's what Alfred and I do. It's basic stuff like maintaining everyone else's covers, keeping up appearances, looking harmless so we can get in with the other nobles."

Jason nodded, but the tasks didn't sound appealing. He really wanted to punch something. Preferably Lex Luthor's smug face.

"What about Cass, what does she do?" Jason asked.

Cass glanced over at him. "Whatever needs to be done." She said simply.

Steph elaborated, "Cass is the covert one. Lord Wayne might be the dark knight himself, but Cass and Damian are his shadows. At least, Damian is when he isn't being an elitist brat. Cass learned how to fight at a young age and Damian's grandfather was the man that taught Lord Wayne combat skills. They're like ninjas! All three of them."

Jason rolled his eyes but he couldn't help the small chuckle that escaped his lips. "I know it's amazing to your brain, Steph."

"Ouch." Cass replied.

Steph didn't rise to the bait, too used to Jason already to realize he was just teasing her. "Anyway, Dick's got the intel gathering part going on. He was at the party your old master held in order to find information on a ring that's smuggling and killing slaves."

For a moment Jason saw red. " _What_?"

Steph's eyes widened. "You didn't know? We suspected Lord Brant was involved in the trading operation, based on a conversation I overheard and boss man confirmed. Lord Wayne was positive Brant Senior was involved, so he sent Dick to find out if Brant Junior was also in the loop." She peered at Jason. "Would you know anything about that?"

No. Jason didn't. Except...

_"My father's been giving me more money for my allowances lately, putting more in my trust fund too."_

"Yes." Jason said. "Lord Brant was giving money to my master. My master thought business must have been doing well, but he never bothered to find out; never bothered to tell me anything, either."

Steph nodded as though she expected that. "What we're doing here, Jason... it might require you to do things you find unpleasant."

"Like?" Jason asked. He wasn't going to roll his eyes at Stephanie, no matter how stupid the question. 

It was Alfred who answered. "We haven't had someone in our position who could assist Master Dick. He passes through the nobles unseen because he is Gotham's most eligible bachelor. His whirlwind romances end up in gossip magazines -- as have, I've noticed, rumors about the mysterious slave he recently acquired."

"So what, you want me to play the part of the body slave? I am one." Jason replied.

"Are you sure, Jason? We can find some other way." Steph said gently. 

Jason rolled his eyes. "Why is everyone so intent on second guessing me? I've been a body slave for ten years. You know what that means? It means people tell me things they think no one should know. They tell me secrets because they want someone to know and if that someone's a slave? Well, it's not like I matter anyway. People tell slaves things they wouldn't dare breathe to a noble. You want information on this slave trafficking ring? I can get it."

"How?" Steph asked.

Jason hoped Stephanie wasn't being obtuse on purpose. "Isn't it obvious? People share body slaves all the time. Loan me to someone who has information and I'll get it."

The silence was so thick between them Jason could have sworn he would hear a pin drop. "Absolutely not." Alfred declared, as if that was the end of the conversation.

Jason said, "I don't care. You said so yourself. This is much bigger than just any one of us. You want to save those slaves? Use me!"

All these bleeding hearted fools with their softness. They wanted a war, but they weren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary to wage war. Jason was. Jason would make that sacrifice. Besides -- it's not like it mattered; he was already ruined enough and if giving more of himself than he had for just a little longer meant saving some other kid from that fate? Jason wasn't going to let the petty, pretty morals of sheltered ingrates stop him.

*~*~*

"I don't love you."   
  
That was... that was okay. Dick tried to tell himself that. It was okay. Jason was angry and hurting and Jason didn't owe Dick anything -- especially not his love. He was a slave -- Dick's slave -- for crying out loud. So why did his heart ache so much when he remembered those words spoken so coldly to him? Why did the thought of being without Jason now that he'd found him drive him suspiciously close to the sorrow that led to tears?  
  
He needed to talk to Bruce, but he couldn't focus past the heartache. He needed to discuss Tim and Babs and now Jason's involvement with them. Bruce already knew a little, having given Dick permission after Jason's meltdown to tell the slave about their operation, but he wouldn't be thrilled to learn Babs knew what they were up to. The only saving grace was that Babs hadn't told Tim and was waiting for permission before she did.   
  
Bruce really couldn't afford to turn down Barbara's help anyway, and Dick could really use an extra hand in the pretending to be a socialite department. All these parties, galas, and intimate gatherings were wearing thin on Dick. Being the most eligible bachelor in Gotham was a hard facade to maintain. If Tim could give him a run for his money that would ease the pressure on Dick.  
  
Argument's prepared, Dick knocked on the door to Bruce's office and stepped inside. Bruce wasn't in his office, not that it mattered. He wasn't spending much time on the main floor these days anyway. So Dick pushed open the clock against the side wall. The cave below the manor was a family secret, something they'd yet to divulge to Jason but would soon enough. Right now only Bruce and Alfred came down here with any sort of consistency, the hidden workshop at the bottom of the cave serving as a base of operations for what Bruce called Batman and the rest of the family simply called the Dark Knight.   
  
"B? You down here?" Dick called down the stairs. It was lit, however dimly, in the cave by overhead industrial lights, a secret maze that Bruce had been assembling for nigh on twenty years now, all in preparation for this, the climatic debut.   
  
"Yes." Bruce replied, voice echoing. Above them, the bats from which Bruce had gotten his name chattered at Dick, angrily chastising him for the noise in the silence.  
  
Dick ignored them. Silly flying mice didn't intimidate him. He found Bruce on the mats set up for sparing, shadow boxing his way through a workout routine he'd taught Dick years ago, but mixing it up to keep from falling into dangerous routines. As Dick approached, Bruce landed his last kick and spun around on his heels to face his eldest child. "I take it things did not go well with Jason."  
  
"How could you tell?" Dick asked curiously.  
  
"It's written all over your face. You're an open book, Dick." Bruce reached for a towel on the edge of the mat and used it to wipe the sweat off his brow. "He's your Jason though." It wasn't a question.  
  
Dick nodded. "Yes. He's the one they took me from. He's agreed to help us but he doesn't want anything to do with me. He's angry. He thinks I left him."  
  
Bruce didn't reply, but that didn't surprise Dick. Bruce was especially bad at human interaction when he wasn't in his persona as Lord Wayne. He tended to ignore things he didn't feel like dealing with, which included almost all human emotion in general. The man was so repressed it couldn't be healthy.  
  
"Give it time." Was Bruce's eventual response. "Is there anything else?"  
  
"Yes." Dick answered. "Barbara Gordon hacked into the computer system. She knows what we're doing."  
  
That was enough to give Bruce pause. "Did she now?" He sounded rather calm given that his security wasn't on par with Barbara's. Then again, he probably had more of a clue as to Babs's illicit activities than Dick did. That wouldn't be a surprise. "If she's anything like her father then she's good at playing her part."  
  
Dick cocked his head to the side. "What part?"  
  
"The same ones you and I play. I appointed Commissioner Gordon because he's a good, fair man. Whatever he believes about me as Lord Wayne, he will be fair and impartial to the people. Beneath the veneer of compliance with the will of the Lords, he is just as against the Oligarchy as we are."  
  
Come to think of it, that made sense. After all, Gordon was one of the few good officers in a city that was still brimming with corruption. He'd never approved of his daughter's relationship with a Lord of the city, no matter how many would have fawned over having Richard Grayson's favor.   
  
"Barbara wants to join us. She's been working with Timothy Drake to piece together the trading ring mystery." Dick said.  
  
Now Bruce shook his head, one hand coming up to rest against his temple. "I should say no. Barbara is old enough to make her own decisions but Timothy Drake is seventeen. It's bad enough Damian and the girls are involved, and now Jason as well, but we can't win a revolution on the backs of children alone."  
  
Dick rolled his eyes. "You're being dramatic. After the massacres, the only ones left to fight back are the children."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Then you also know that we have to take back the country soon. These children are growing up without knowing what freedom is. We used to be the land of the free. We need to give it back to them however we can." More quietly, Dick added, "Even if that means we make the necessary sacrifices. A few to save the many."

*~*~*

Friday morning dawned bright and crisp with a fine layer of frost across the ground, a crystalline white in an otherwise bleak world. Tim woke early, nervous excitement driving him to check and recheck his baggage even before Mary was supposed to wake him up. The house slave was one he maintained for appearance's sake, at his father's insistence. Jack Drake was a man concerned about public appearances and keeping up the ideal of the lord who embraced the modern culture with his whole heart. Unfortunately, that meant that save for the slaves that mysteriously vanished from the house, there was a modest staff of sixteen slaves including the sixteen-year-old Mary.

She found him in the dining room eating an early breakfast while his father read the morning paper. Jack hadn't been invited to the gala in metropolis but would be attending the one in the Wayne Manor for the actual anniversary of the revolution, but he'd expressed pride in Tim for getting in Lord Grayson's good favor. Tim wasn't sure what there was to actually be proud of. "The car is here, Lord Drake."

Tim rose from the table. "Thank you Mary. Has my luggage been loaded?"

She nodded. "Yes, my lord." 

He thanked her and she bowed and left. Tim made to follow her but his father stopped him. "Tim." He called.

"Yes father?" Tim asked. He didn't turn to face his father, hoping whatever he had to say was a simple platitude that wouldn't delay him.

"When you go to Metropolis... be careful." Jack said.

"Whatever for, father?" 

"We are lucky, living in Gotham. You've been sheltered from the true horrors of the Oligarchy because Lord Wayne does not permit such excess in the city." 

Tim thought about Lord Brant's party last week, where the slave with the blue-green eyes had been part of the proposed entertainment. He'd never seen that before and had assumed it was because he'd been considered a child before now, one to be sheltered from such excesses and indulgences. He'd never considered that perhaps Lord Wayne's influence was to credit. An influence and a rule that Lord Brant, so recently of Star City, would not have yet fallen under.

"Yes father." Tim replied, and left. He was still considering his father's words when he climbed into the car and during the ride to the nearby Wayne Manor. He climbed the stairs to the front door and the door was opened by a blond haired slave in the black uniform of the Wayne family. She bowed to him and left him in the foyer to fetch Lord Grayson.

Overall, the Wayne manor wasn't much different from the Drake manor. Larger, a little older, nicer, but old money was old money. Tim was waiting for less than five minutes before he saw the slave with blue-green eyes again. The slave was dressed in black and carrying a book cradled under his arm. He paused in the foyer when he saw Tim before bowing. 

"My lord, it's good to see you again." The slave spoke softly, deep voice carrying despite the quiet.

Tim waved him off. "And you, though I'm afraid I never caught your name. Are you well?"

"I am, my lord." The slave replied. He rose from the bow but kept his head lowered.

Tim said, "That's good to hear. Your master was quite adamant about your health when last we spoke, but of course I wanted to see for myself."

Something flickered across the slave's face. Regret or chargrin, Tim couldn't discern which. Awkward silence fell between them. Tim said, "I'm sure you have important things to do with your time. I shouldn't hold you up."

"Thank you, sir." The slave replied, and headed up the grand staircase in the foyer just as Lord Grayson appeared at the top of the stairwell. The two passed by each other, with Lord Grayson moving aside to give the slave a wide berth, an action that was too forced not to be noticed. Something was going on between the two of them.

Lord Grayson smiled as he descended the steps, the persona of an easy going, decadent and hedonistic lord falling easily into place once he saw Tim. Had Tim not seen just a few minutes ago when the slave had walked past, he'd have never guessed that the lord he saw now was an illusion.

"Ready to go?" Tim asked, holding out one arm for the other man to take. Grayson smiled and accepted the arm.

"Of course, my dear date. I owe you an introduction."

*~*~*

They rode in silence for the first half hour. Tim was tempted to take out his phone and scroll through news feeds -- articles upon articles were being published about who would be at the galas wearing what designer, the gossip following celebrities and nobles alike. Tim had seen more than one article published on Gotham gossip blogs and websites speculating on who Lord Wayne would be attending with, and also whether his heir would appear in public or not. Damian Wayne was notoriously reclusive for a lord, but he was also only twelve. When Tim was his age, his father wouldn't let him appear at public events. That Grayson would be attending was a forgone conclusion -- he was well known to have connections in the major cities and he was Gotham's darling socialite. 

Finally, Lord Grayson broke the silence. "I spoke to Barbara Gordon yesterday afternoon." He said it casually, but with the clear expectation that Tim would know exactly to whom Grayson was referring.

Tim forced a casual smile, "I see. I had forgotten that you and she had an on again, off again relationship." Tim lied easily.

Grayson nodded. "We did. She mentioned you in our last conversation. She said you're investigating the Maroney family and Lord Brant's involvement in the recent appearance of bodies in the Gotham river."

Tim froze. Barbara had told Lord Grayson -- Lord Wayne's eldest child -- about their investigation, an investigation no one but the two of them were supposed to know about. Logic kicked in in the next moment. Barbara wouldn't tell without a reason, a reason she may have chosen to keep from Tim out of the loop, but she wouldn't just betray him unless she felt her judgment was sound. So Tim said, "Yes, I am."

Grayson -- no, Richard -- smiled back at Tim. "So am I."

Ah, so that was why Barbara had included Richard. "I see. It stands to gather we're after the same goal."

"Not quite." Richard replied. "We're after something a little bit bigger than just a smuggling ring. We could use your help however."

"Depends on what you're after." Tim challenged. 

"The downfall of the Oligarchy."

He said it so casually, as if treason hadn't just spilled from his lips. Tim had to laugh. "You, the playboy son of the playboy lord of Gotham want to bring down the Oligarchy that gave you far more power than the democracy ever did."

Richard cocked his head to the side, the soft smile never sliding off his face. "Is that so surprising?" Tim didn't answer, but Richard apparently didn't need him to. "Did you ever find it odd that Bruce Wayne, a billionaire with no parents, no lover, no children suddenly decided to adopt a child upon his return to Gotham after an extended absence spent traveling the world? People said perhaps he was feeling generous, but that's not his personality. It's not Lord Oliver Queen's personality either."

"What are you saying?" Tim asked. "Lord Harper is a childhood friend of Lady Thea Queen."

Richard nodded. "That's what made him a powerful choice as the Queen family's... insurance... to behave."

Tim felt a chill run down his spine as he made the necessary deductions, connected the right dots. A child innocent in all this would have been poor insurance for most people, but clearly not for Lord Queen or Lord Wayne. But that would make Richard... "They kidnapped you."

"No." Richard answered. "Not as such. They offered my parents a deal. Safe passage for their son and freedom from the coming massacre. In exchange for that -- and Bruce's good behavior -- I was given the rank of noble and allowed to grow up free."

Tim considered it for a moment. "How many nobles were forced to adopt children before the revolution."

"Just the two." Richard answered. "Only two families had the power to oppose Lord Luthor's Oligarchy -- and one of them had already had his family decimated for one such show of resistance. It wasn't a random mugger who killed Martha and Thomas Wayne."

"So they took a childhood friend and a random child and placed them in powerful families as a reminder to stay in line." Tim summarized.

Richard nodded. "If you want to know why I won't sell you Jason... well, first of all he is my Roy Harper. Second, he's part of this resistance now too... and you are welcome to join us, if you'd like. Bruce is our mastermind, but with your deductive reasoning and Barbara's peerless hacking skills, we'd be much more secure in our ability to take down Luthor's regime."

Tim considered it. Taking down the Oligarchy had never been part of his plan. He didn't remember the Democracy, except that it was broken and no longer working in the best interest of the people. This regime certainly wasn't doing any better but who was Tim, a genius, yes, but only seventeen years old, to determine what was in the best interest of the people? It wasn't an unattractive idea, but a small group of people would have no chance. If it was just the Wayne family, then they were doomed to fail.

"Who else is involved?" Tim asked.

Richard cocked his head to the side. "It's unclear, exactly. There's more than just us. There are people in Metropolis, Star, and Central City all with their own agendas who have agreed to work under a common leader. More are associated with each leader in each city. A reporter in Metropolis who can surpass human abilities, a forensic analyst in Central working for the police, the Queen family in Star City."

Tim nodded, "Not enough, however."

"No." Richard replied. "More gather everyday, and I can only speak to Gotham. Our leaders, who I mentioned, will handle the Oligarchy. We must handle the cities themselves. Bruce and the others -- they don't understand the slaves. The oldest survivors of the massacre were seventeen years old, barely old enough to be independent. Now those same slaves are having children of their own -- a first generation of an interned caste. If we don't act soon and if we don't consider the slaves, it will be a repeat of history all over again. This country once enslaved a whole race of people, and the devastation it caused them hadn't even yet been fixed before we decided to enslave a whole class."

"You care very deeply about this." Tim observed. 

For once Richard's smile wasn't easy and open, but rather closed and bitter. "When you imagine a collar around your throat every morning when you wake up, it tends to change your perspective. When your once best friend wears a collar, it changes everything."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason loses his temper, Tim gets a slave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So two reasons for the lateness of this chapter. 1) None of it was written at the time I posted the last chapter, and each chapter, according to 4thewords' document tracker, takes around 6-8 hours to write. Couple that with working full time and severe depression and you have slow updates.
> 
> 2) I started a side story to this one, called "This You Protect." It takes place roughly two months into the future from where we're at in the story right now, so it may actually fall in the timeline of events and MAY get wrapped into this story in the future. In the meantime, I'll publish it as a standalone 2-shot as soon as I finish it. The behemoth is currently 5K out of an expected 8K.
> 
> Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers! It's always a bittersweet kind of holiday for me because, yay, family and food and friends but boo to the massacre of my ancestral people. So, you know. #NativeAmericanProblems

_Jason lays flat on his stomach, his hands bound behind his back, feet tied at the ankles. The rope is coarse and hurts a little to move, rubbing against sensitive skin and leaving welts and raw burns where it crosses his body. Despite that, it's expertly tied by a man who used to do this for a living. Before the fall, he'd probably never have been the type to go after a kid, but orders are orders, or so he claims, and if he doesn't want to lose his life he'll train this first class of body slaves in the arts of pain and pleasure. Jason thinks he's a filthy pervert who deserves to rot in a hole. A good person would die before doing something this horrendous._

_But instead that man kneels behind Jason, fingers slick with lubricant as he pries into Jason's smaller body, working open his ass for something larger than fingers. Jason bites his lip to keep from making a sound, not wanting to reveal his discomfort at the pressure bearing down on him from the inside._

_"You're too tight, boy. Bear down and relax." The man who Jason only knows as Master orders him, a second finger joining the first. The lubricant helps but the stretch burns. Jason grits his teeth but for his own sake tries to do as order, as he was trained. Master's not cruel, not like the task master who first placed Jason among the body slaves, and in fact even seems to pity Jason a bit, going easier on him than he does on the older boys, but orders are orders and this has to be done. Still, he's not a good man and Jason doesn't like him and doesn't care why he's here because Master, even when he's trying to be gentle, inevitably ends up hurting him._

_It helps, but not enough and by the third finger Jason's panting and keening little cries are escaping from his lips. He tries to struggle away but the rope -- hemp, he's been told -- is blisteringly coarse on his skin. He fights against the feeling of invasion, of the trespassing sense of his body no longer being his own, but ultimately he fails._

_The fingers are removed and Jason would breathe in relief except that this is not the end of this session. No, this is the beginning. He flinches as he hears the tear of a condom wrapper, the slip of a zipper and more lubricant._

_When the first press of the cock against his ass comes, Jason bites back a sob. He wants to beg but he's already learned that begging gets him nowhere. This is gentle, he's been told. His Master is taking is slower with him than with the other boys he's training, easing him into the types of sex he'll be used for by starting with bondage and gentle sex. Still, if this is gentle, Jason fears what will happen later._

*~*~*

It was another nightmare that woke Jason on Saturday morning, breathless and covered in sweat. He showered in too hot water once more, and couldn't breathe until he dragged the blade down the inner part of his left forearm, several long scratches that bled sluggishly onto the towel he used to wipe down. He'd gone deeper than he intended -- the marks would scab noticeably. He'd have to get the cutting under control again if he hoped to keep it hidden from the others.

Jason was the first to the kitchen that morning, and it was only as he was standing in the cold, dark room that he realized it was only four in the morning. Alfred wouldn't even be awake for another thirty minutes or so. The rest of the household wouldn't wake up for several more hours after. Jason made the decision to go to the library. He was already dressed and too restless to go back to sleep and the books had been working at helping with his anger. Reading for two hours every day was a breath of fresh air, a chance to grow in the shadow of all the horrible aspects of his life. It wasn't enough on its own. But it was still something good in his life.

Jason didn't count on the library being occupied. 

It was early in the morning and outside the sun was nowhere near to rising, still a dark and starless night. Jason stepped inside and paused, coming face to face with Lord Wayne. The lord was seated on the couch near the window, reading, pose relaxed. He looked up when Jason entered. 

"Couldn't sleep, Jason?" Lord Wayne asked casually.

Jason bowed his head, hand clenched at his side. "Yes, my lord."

"No need to stand on formalities with me. Dick has told you what our plans are?"

Jason repeated, "Yes, he has." This time he dropped the honorific intentionally, just to see what the lord would do.

Lord Wayne merely leveled him an even stare, impassive. This was different from the persona he portrayed to the world, the one Jason had seen on TV and in front of audiences, smiling and waving and the picture of a benevolent, charitable lord. Playboy Bruce Wayne, who ran away to travel the world and had a love affair along the way, creating his one and only true child. The truth, from what Jason was learning, was far different. A man driven to right the wrongs his parents failed to stop from happening, a man willing to give up his comfortable complacency to save the children who were left after the massacres. Jason could begrudgingly respect a man like that.

Lord Wayne said, "Then you know that when we are alone you don't have to stand on formalities with me."

Jason shook his head. "Better not to break character, even in private. You run the risk of breaking character in public too."

Lord Wayne's smile was even, but there was something darker behind it, a bitterness that Jason, with all his skill at reading people to survive, still couldn't quite place. "You would have plenty of practice with keeping up your appearances. You've been nothing but obedient except where Dick is involved."

"Is that a problem, my lord?" Jason asked, forcing his tone to stay even. 

Lord Wayne smirked in response, closing his book with a sharp snap. "You have spark in you, Jason, but Dick is not your enemy. There are bigger villains we must face." 

"Of course there are." Jason growled. "There's always someone more important, or something more important. The good of the many outweighs the rights of the few, after all." Jason growled. "That's how they justified slavery. That's how they justified the oligarchy -- because we stopped mattering the moment we were born poor."

"That isn't what I meant and you know it, Jason." Lord Wayne replied evenly. "I know the pain hurts and it's easy to lash out at those closest to you, but this self destructive behavior stops now if you want to be a part of this group."

Jason cocked his head to the side. "Or what? You'll sell me? Been there, been threatened with that."

Lord Wayne shook his head. "No. I'll send you to Canada."

Jason recoiled. That was almost worse than being sold. "You can't." 

For all that his heart yearned for freedom, Jason had no idea what he'd do with it. This was his country -- if he found freedom here then everyone would be working together to figure out what that meant to them. If Jason went to Canada... he'd be just another victim fleeing the country. Just another coward who didn't stay home and fight. Jason wouldn't do that. 

Lord Wayne said, his voice a challenge, "Then prove to me, Jason, that you can fight back. Prove to me that you're not too broken."

"You bastard!" Jason shouted, pulling his hand back into a fist as he lunged blindly at Lord Wayne. The man was on his feet, however, and out of Jason's way before Jason could blink. "You don't know what it's like. Broken is what they made me!" He made another blind lunge for Lord Wayne and again the man was gone before Jason could reach him. Damn! Steph hadn't been lying. The man was  _fast._ "You don't get to decide for me whether I'm ready to fight, whether I'm too  _broken_ to be of use to you! You don't know what it's like to be a slave."

"Jason." Lord Wayne's voice was a command. Jason froze at the tone, pausing long enough to stare back at Lord Wayne where he calmly replaced his book on the shelf and said, "You are not the only one who has lost in this new world. I may not know what it's like to be a slave, but I know what it's like to have your parent's killed for ideals they and you don't believe in; I know what it's like to want to fight back by any means necessary for your version of justice, and for what this country once meant to its people."

He turned and headed for the door, leaving Jason staring after him, still furious. Before he left, Lord Wayne said, "You are not the only one with everything to lose, Jason. We are not enemies."

Alone in the library, Jason plopped down on the couch and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, his fingers digging deeply into the scratches on his arms, picking at the scabs until they bled sluggishly. The movement and the pain distracted him from his anger, and beneath that anger, his fear. Lord Wayne had provoked him, but Jason was the one who let himself be provoked, who let himself slip in front of the lord and reveal his true self underneath it all. It wasn't fear of Lord Wayne that paralized Jason, but fear of himself. If his calm shattered now, he might never find it again and that, after everything, would unravel him.

*~*~*

Since they'd driven up on Friday, and the gala was to be held late on Saturday, that left most of Saturday free. Tim, who'd never been to Metropolis, took advangtage of his relative anonymity to explore the city. It truly was a shining beacon of light in the western world. Clean, bright, full of smiling people, but with something artificial about all of it. This was the face of a propaganda, the face of people terrified to be seen as anything less than perfectly content with what they had.

This was a lie.

It was strange. People thought he was a commoner because he was dressed like one and walking around the street like one. Slaves still gave him a wide berth, their collars as gleaming as the city, but the commoners were a mixed bag. Many were heading about their day to day lives on the cool Saturday mid-morning, running errands and meeting with friends. The discontent was there, hidden as it was, but Tim wasn't stupid. A slave here lingered too long catching a freeman's eyes; a woman with two small children hushed one when she fussed, her raised voice decrying the "unfairness" of the world; a group of teenagers in loose clothing scattered when a police officer came near -- likely homeless or highly transitory youth trying not to get caught as such and enslaved because of it. A free woman handing out pamplets for her church on the corner quoted the verse about turning the other cheek, a verse that was seen as passive unless one was familiar with their history.

A history only taught in noble academies, and no longer to the general public -- but a history the commoners had not forgotten.

He rode the subway through downtown towards Metropolis's Market Street, disembarking at the station as he noticed the number of slaves increase in this part of town -- the number of nobles as well, though nobles would not deign to take the subway like Tim. There were few commoners in this part of town, mostly the task masters employed by the auction houses that lined the street. Tim, in his hoodie and jeans, looked more like a lost teenager than a potential buyer. He ducked into one of the nearby houses, one that specialized in body slaves. The guard cast him a disgruntled look until Tim waved his house token in his face, revealing himself as a noble. 

Admittedly, Tim had never been inside an auction house before -- his father had always forbidden it and Tim had no interest in seeing the misery of slaves. It felt invasive and voyereuristic, and Tim already felt he understood the true horrors of the Oligarchy well enough without having to see it first hand. Now, however, Tim was curious. What would he encounter in an auction house in the gleaming, shining city of Metropolis. This false utopia where the people smiled out of fear held many secrets, and Tim was determined to pry them from the city one by one if he had to.

It... wasn't what Tim expected. The foyer was brightly lit, with modern white architecture and carpet and black furniture. There were several other nobles who cast disdainful looks Tim's way as he entered the room, and a slave dressed in black slacks and a white button down shirt, three buttons left artfully undone, greeted him with a warm smile. There were no other slaves in the room. No dungeon, no pain, no suffering. For a moment Tim wondered if he'd walked instead into a high end department store.

But no, the signs were there, subtle as they were. Especially when the slave handed him a tablet and asked if he had any special requests, offering him a glass of wine while he waited. It being early in the day and Tim still not of legal age to drink (not that legal drinking ages had mattered much in the past ten years), Tim opted for water instead. He took a seat on a couch some distances away and idly began flipping through the catalog on the tablet,  noticing the selection even as he watched the other customers in intermittent glances. 

Boy, girl, tall, short, black, white, asian, or latin american, body types and hair colors and eye colors. You could find whatever you were looking for in the catalog. Tim sorted by age. The oldest were in their mid-twenties, as they would have been the oldest ones to survive the massacre. The youngest were fifteen, mere children touting virginal status, an untouched and fresh pallet upon which to paint whatever masterpiece their master or mistress wanted. 

Curious, Tim clicked on one of the profiles. The young man in the image was around sixteen or seventeen, Tim's age, with blue eyes and dark hair that stared balefully at the camera. Beside his image, the dossier listed important information. Name, age, race, training house, previous sales. Conner, seventeen, white, privately trained for previous owner, one previous owner. Tim clicked for more information. Record sealed.

Interesting.

He flipped to the next slave. Amelia, seventeen, black, Central District Pleasure, two previous sales. He clicked her information. A list of names came up.

Tim flipped back to Conner. Why was this slave's record sealed? How curious when other slaves' weren't. Sometimes that happened at the request of the previous master, paid with a generous amount of money. It usually wasn't worth it. So why this slave?

Further down the dossier was a list of skills and special training. Tim read it with mild interest. Docile, trained primarily for men but with the right training would be suitable for a woman, right temperment for sadomasochism play but not strongly recommended. Some disciplinary issues. Needing of firm guidance and physical reinforcement methods. 

Tim gestured for the slave manning the room to come over. "I'd like to see Conner please."

The slave replied smoothly. "Of course sir, but I must warn you we can't discount his price any further than listed, despite his behavioral problems."

He smiled back. "I will keep that in mind." The slave bowed and left.

It only took a few minutes before the attendant slave returned, a lead wrapped around one hand as they escorted the slave bound at the end. He was tall, handsome, and almost as well built as Lord Grayson's new slave. He was dressed in the black and white uniform of the house, the sleeveless, collarless white shirt clinging to his skin to show off a rather nice musclature. With grace and poise, the slave knelt easily at Tim's feet, eyes deferred downward. Tim waved off the hovering assistant, who gave them a shallow privacy which Tim had been somewhat expecting.

"Conner." Tim spoke as soon as they were alone. "I was curious about you from your profile. Tell me about yourself. Where were you born?"

"Here, sir." Conner answered easily. 

"Have you ever left Metropolis?"

"No, sir."

Tim considered the information. Now for the real question. "Who owned you previously?"

Conner started slightly, glancing up just enough for Tim to know he'd caught the boy off guard. "I'm not allowed to say."

Of course. Tim had been expecting that, but Conner's reaction was interesting. The flash of hesitance -- of fear -- on his face told Tim enough. This was a dangerous person.

"The dossier says you have behavorial problems, yet you seem quite docile right now."

"Yes sir." Conner answered, clearly more comfortable with this line of questioning. "I startle easily. I struck one of the trainers during a panic. Since then, I've been listed a behaviorally deficient."

Interesting. No wonder the house wasn't willing to come down on the price. They were legally required to list all incidents of a slave's agression, even a one off event. If Conner was truly as docile as he said he was, then he'd be worth keeping around despite his panic. 

"How long have you been a body slave?" Tim asked next.

"Three years, sir." Conner replied, still perfectly obedient. 

Tim thought about it. His father would kill him if he brought a slave home to "disappear." They were attracting attention right now. If he bought Conner, then the slave would need to stay with Tim for a while before he could vanish. If he wanted to vanish, that was. Sometimes the fear of the unknown kept slaves from heading to Canada, even when freedom was offerred. This was most true of the younger ones who barely remembered freedom. With the slave he'd tried to win from Lord Brant there was a clear and present danger -- he was being used as a masochist by his master -- so he would have been worth the risk. Conner was not in danger, wasn't even likely to be used for pain play. Body slaves not specialized in pain play often suffered no worse that the occasional bondage or physical discipline that all slaves sometimes received.

Still, Tim was old enough to own a body slave. He could buy Conner, keep him until the attention from the anniversary faded a bit, and then send him north. He didn't even cost as much as Tim might have thought he would -- a sizeable amount, of course, but not enough for his father to protest, especially since it was Tim's money. 

He gestured the attendant over to him. "I'll take him."

The attendant bowed. "Of course sir. Transaction information is on the screen in front of you. This slave wears a special type of collar due to his disciplinary issues. One will be mailed to your address. For now, we ask that you please not remove the collar he is currently wearing."

Tim nodded. What an odd stipulation. At his feet, the slave didn't react, just knelt patiently while Tim began filling out forms and information. When he finished, the attendant came, took his tablet, and thanked him for his purchase. Tim rose, Conner's lead in his hand, as he headed back onto the street.

"We'll need to take the metro back to my hotel." Tim said when they stood on the front steps of the auction house. "I came via private car to Metropolis from my home in Gotham, but I decided to explore today. You're something of an impulse purchase."

"Yes, Master." Conner replied demurely. Tim frowned. They'd have to work on Conner's submissive attitude before he'd be all right to go to Canada. Oh well, that could wait until they were safely back in Gotham. For now, Tim descended the steps into the busy sidewalk, heading for the metro with Conner trailing along behind him. The streets were full of people now, and the press didn't make room for a pair of teenagers, even if one was a noble. Tim yelped in surprise when a man brushed past him, knocking his shoulder and sending him stumbling into Conner, who caught him easily.

The man turned and glanced at Tim, "My apologies." He murmured, and glanced at Conner briefly, an unreadable expression on his face, eyes dark beneath his glasses. "My lord." He added, just as quietly, and disappeared into the crowd before Tim could react.

Conner said, "Master, are you all right?"

Tim shook his head to get the weird sense of deja vu that had come over him out of his head. "Yeah." He replied. "Yeah, I'm fine Conner. Let's get back to the hotel room. I've got to get dressed for tonight's party."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder who that was... XD Big shoutout to Kattitina for helping me figure out how to make Conner/Tim one of the pairings. :D I wanted to from the beginning but had no idea how I was going to manage it.
> 
> Next update may take a while to come. I've got to buckle down and finish my data scraping for "How to Write the Perfect Fanfiction" (AnimeUSA -- Sunday at 2PM! Come see me!) so it's not just the old "sex sells" truism (I have data proving it's only somewhat true). I'm also writing oneshots for readers of my writing blog right now. I have three left to do so my inbox is currently closed. I'll open it again in about a month and I really hope people will come request stories from me! Everyone wants me to write Final Fantasy fanfiction. I want to mix it up so give me some DCU and Voltron, friendlies! 
> 
> If this ends up being the last update of the year, don't panic. I will be back. Happy holidays everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me derping online at [my personal tumblr](http://lockea.tumblr.com) or you can read more of my fiction on [my writing tumblr](http://storytellerlockea.tumblr.com). Feel free to pop on over and shoot me a message, ask, or a comic book or video game recommendation!
> 
> As always, leaving kudos and comments is food for the author. Always at least hit that kudos button before you go. I always love seeing my daily email with my kudos in it and knowing who is reading what. And, of course, I love comments even more, as does every author. Thanks so much and I hope you enjoyed! See you next time.


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